The Sky Opens Up, Things Doth Die
by Shadow Master
Summary: (BtVS/Utawarerumono/Rurouni Kenshin/Other Demi-human Sources) Evil is Cunning. It is ambitious and it absolutely will not stop until it is victorious. Good thing some people don't care much about the odds right?
1. Chapter 1

"The Sky Opens Up, Things Doth Die" by Shadow Master

email: ryley[underscore]breen

(BtVS/Utawarerumono/Rurouni Kenshin/Outlaw Star/Dog Days/Omamori Himari/Others)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no money from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write these stories because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore I would appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can assure you that whatever you get will not cover even a fifth of your legal fees or in any way compensate you for the time lost due to the legal proceedings.

Timeline info: Things will start out in the BtVS universe during the Season 2 episode "Becoming Part 2". In the Utawarerumono universe it will happen during the final episode of the first anime series.

Note 1: As with many of my stories I will do what I can to remain true to canon facts but not to the point where they will interfere with the story I wish to tell. This is a Fan Fiction story after all so to me that means I have some leeway in terms of how I use the source material. As long as the changes I make are feasible and people can connect dot A to dot B to dot C without too much trouble it's all good.

Note 2: I am willing to accept suggestions from you the readers but understand two things. First I will have final say on what is incorporated into the story. If your idea doesn't get used that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad idea but rather that my own personal muse just didn't like it enough for it to be used. Secondly any suggestions must mesh with what I've written thus far. I write for fun and I am not getting paid for a single word. Any suggestion that's going to require that I go back and rewrite an entire scene or even an entire chapter to make everything fit together satisfactorily will very likely be discarded without more than a light review. It would have take an idea that would have my muse jumping up and down on the bed like me on a sugar rush with an excited grin on her face for me to be willing to rewrite things to that degree.

Now with all that said and done let's get going to the good stuff…

 _ **The Sky Opens Up, Things Doth Die**_

 _ **Universe 05191998**_

 _This is going to come back and bite me in the ass, I just KNOW IT!_ he thought as he continued to make his way to the Crawford Street mansion as quickly as he could.

Willow, his bestest bud and basically his sister, had ordered him to find Buffy and tell her to stall Angelus so that the newbie Wicca could make another attempt at the soul curse. He'd tried to talk her out of it but she'd hit him with the 'Resolve Face', so he'd been powerless to stand up to her, leading him to where he was right now. Fortunately for him the 'Resolve Face' lost its effect on him the longer he was away from her so now he was firmly in the 'this is a terrible idea' camp. Oh, he knew that if he opened his mouth again to either Buffy or Willow they'd pull the 'you are just jealous of Angel' card but that was just them going with a more comfortable reason instead of the truth.

The truth of the matter was that, so long as Angel was a vampire, so long as there was a risk of the new soul curse breaking, there was never going to be a solid relationship for him and Buffy. Lack of immortality, limited interactivity, and her Slayer instincts screaming at her to kill Angel pretty much eliminated the chance for a healthy relationship. The whole 'Romeo and Juliet' fantasy that Buffy clung to would only blind her to the truth for so long before she'd be thirty something and Angel would still look to be in his mid-twenties. Then, of course, there was the fact that, unless she wanted to restrict their activities to something indoors or at night, there'd be a ton of things that they wouldn't be able to do together. Finally you had to consider the likelihood that Buffy's inner Slayerness would only get stronger in time, including the natural inclination to dust vamps.

It was a recipe for disaster and, as far as he could tell, only he and Giles could see it but the latter was too concerned to preserving his relationship of trust with his Slayer to confront her.

As a result he had a choice to make: pass on the message as conveyed or give Buffy the message necessary in order to save the world.

One life, metaphorically speaking, against the billions that were at stake the world over? There was no choice.

If Buffy held back in order to stall for time, she would die because he knew with absolute certainty that Angelus would not hold back against her. He'd come at her with everything he had, with the intent to kill, and even a fool knew that when you had person holding back fighting, someone who wasn't the latter was sure to win. As good as Buffy was at fighting, if she pulled her punches against Angelus with the buzz of potentially getting Angel back in her head, she would lose.

For the day to be won and billions of lives to be saved, Angelus needed to be destroyed.

Mind made up he continued along the way to Crawford Street, cutting through back alleys and backyards in order to shave off time in order to successfully intercept Buffy. It was only when he cleared a section of trees that he spotted Buffy striding purposefully on the main road towards the mansion that Angelus' crew were holed up in that he knew he'd made it. Picking up the pace, he pushed his way through the bushes by the side of the main road, jumping out in front of her, startling her into taking a step back.

"Xander!" Buffy exclaimed as she recognized who he was.

"Cavalry's here," he said, holding up the rock he'd grabbed a bit back as an improvised weapon. "Cavalry's a frightened guy with a rock, but its here."

He'd wanted something from the official armory back at the library or his own personal stock at home, but there just hadn't been enough time for that. Still, when Buffy held up a wooden stake, he didn't hesitate to trade up.

"That's better," he said, shifting the wood in his palm until it felt right.

"You're not here to fight," Buffy said as she resumed walking towards the mansion that was their destination. "You get Giles out and you run like hell, understand? I can't protect you. I'll be too busy killing."

"Now that's a new look for you," he said, falling into stride behind her, looking at the weapon in her hand.

"It's a present for Angel," she said, finally sounding like she had the resolve to do what needed to be done.

That made it all the more important for him to give her the right message rather than the one Willow had asked him to give the Slayer.

"Willow said to kick his ass."

Without anything further needing to be said they walked towards the fight that would either save the world or end it. Tuning out the noise of everyday thoughts, he did his best to get his head in the game even with the broken arm halving his ability to either defend or attack. He knew Buffy said that he was only there to get Giles out but he didn't believe that he'd be able to do so without encountering a single vamp. Most vamp lairs they cleaned out had at least four vamps in them but, when there was a Master running the show, that number could go anywhere from triple or quadruple that number. Sure, when Buffy started to kick ass and take names he expected that every minion in the building would swarm her but he'd still likely get the attention of a few stragglers.

He just hoped that he could handle them.

"We're going in by the back door. Give me three minutes to clear out any vamps around the door then follow," she ordered as they began to swing around to the rear of the mansion. "Find Giles and get him out as quickly as you can. Got it?"

"Got it," he replied not opposed to the idea at all.

He knew he wasn't in any shape to fight by her side and that only left running for it.

Once they reached the backyard he kept to the edge, hiding behind a tree, but Buffy just kept on walking even though there were two vamps guarding the back door. They spotted her almost instantly but before they could even speak she was right in their faces with the sword, cutting off their heads like grain before the scythe. Before the dust even finished settling to the ground she was through the back door and inside the building but all he could hear were the sounds of combat. He counted away the seconds of the three minute delay that Buffy told him to take and, when it ended, he moved forward swiftly yet cautiously. He pressed his back to the wall to the right of the door, inching closer to the doorframe until he could see inside. Seeing no vamps he quickly switched over to the left side of the door in order to make sure everything was clear. Once he was sure that he wasn't in any immediate danger he zipped inside, keeping every sense he had full throttle while looking for any sign of Giles' presence.

 _Probably in one of the bedrooms,_ he thought as he moved out of the kitchen into the interior hallway. _Angelus doesn't strike me as the type to want an audience when he's having fun._

While some might think the vamp was just a private person, he figured that the truth of the matter was that Angelus didn't want any witnesses in case he failed to pry the info from Giles. He didn't know the Watcher well enough to know if the guy could hold up under torture but he'd like to think the Brit could last a good long while before folding. He REALLY hoped that G-man was in good enough condition to at least stand up because he knew for a fact that he wouldn't be able to carry the man out.

Creeping inch by inch he made sure to check his corners, just like the whispers of the soldier inside him said to. There were a few close calls with some straggling vampires but fortunately they'd been so dead set on getting to where even now Buffy was raising hell they didn't even notice him until it was too late. He did get a few extra bumps for his efforts but nothing like what he'd have gotten if the fang faces had been ready for him and worked together. Before long he was on the second floor and checking each room he came to for any sign of breathing because he knew no walking corpse would need to.

His heart was pounding worse than anything he'd felt watching a horror movie or in any of the past slayage he'd been a part of with Buffy. Still, the adrenaline did help deaden the pain from his broken arm and boosted his situational awareness past what he'd have been capable of normally. Bit by bit he searched until finally he pushed aside a curtain acting as a makeshift door to find Giles tied to a chair, looking like he'd been through utter hell. Blood was everywhere as were the wounds they had come from, with only a half-assed bandage job done to keep the Watcher alive. He could tell with a glance that the man needed immediate medical care that only the hospital could provide.

"Giles!" he exclaimed, rushing to the man's side.

G-man was slow to respond but the fact that the old guy was even conscious was still a big sign of the Brit's inner strength and resiliency.

"Giles!" he said again, trying to get the man to focus on him.

"Xander?" G-Man asked weakly but thankfully above a whisper.

"Can you walk?" he asked as he began to untie the restraints as swiftly as he could.

"You're not real," Giles muttered, sounding certain of that fact.

"Sure, I'm real," he said with an encouraging smile as he went for the last restraint.

"It's a trick. They get inside my head, make me see things I want," Giles explained, indicating that a vamp had done a mind whammy on him.

Fortunately he knew how to dispel that possibility.

"Then why would they make you see me?" he asked.

"You're right. Let's go," Giles said after visibly taken a moment to consider the statement.

With a groan he managed to get the older man standing and, with one arm thrown over his shoulder, he began to make his way back the way he'd come, hoping that once they were out into the streets they could flag down a car. G-Man might've proven he was made of stern stuff by lasting this long, but dragging him all the way to the hospital on foot would waste strength the Watcher likely didn't have. Once out in the hallway part of his mind hoped that none of the vamps would pick up on the mobile scent of blood or else he'd have to see just how fast he could drag Giles clear of the mansion.

 _And to think I have the easy job!_ he thought when he considered the trouble Buffy was probably having.

Even with a firm resolve and a head full of steam, he didn't for a second think that dusting Angelus was going to be an easy job. No vampire nasty enough to earn such a big chapter in the Watcher diaries would be a pushover, nor would any average vamp obey orders from another unless they were head and shoulders stronger. Still, if anyone could beat the odds and come out on top, it was Buffy.

She was his hero after all.

 _ **Universe 040309252006**_

 _ **Being of Darkness' POV**_

"No! We are the embodiment of tragedies!" he declared as he blocked his other self's overhead blow before kicking him away end over end.

He was not surprised when his light side, that many of the tribes called the White God, managed to regain his footing. They were, after all, two halves of the same whole and, while the circumstances of their separation might not have been precise, it did result in an almost equal division of their unified strength. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the power they possessed now was all that remained of that rough division of their combined strength. Untold years sealed away beneath the surface of the planet Earth had weakened them considerably so that, when they finally emerged, they were more fit to be called demigods rather than gods. Still, a part of him was glad that they had been reduced so much in power, for if they'd emerged from the seal still in full possession of their halves of their joined power, the planet would have been rendered lifeless.

Indeed, it looked as though his other half had not fully recovered from the wounds of their last confrontation decades ago, for what else could explain his refusal to control the development of their people.

"Indeed! We are the embodiment of tragedies!" the White God yelled as he leapt through the air, intending to strike.

"We are the embodiment of humility!" he said in counter to his other's statement.

"We are the-!" the White God said before their fists met, resulting in a devastating wave of energy and air displacement.

This was but a brief pause in their struggle and, once it was over, they resumed trading blows, with neither being able to retain the advantage before the other snatched it back. It angered him that his other was still this obstinate and so, interlocking his fingers with those of the White God, he tore the fool's right arm off, leaving not but a bloody stump behind.

"What's wrong, my other self?" he asked with mock concern in his voice. "Our powers should not be this weak!"

This caused the White God to roar in anger before finally tapping into his powers of matter conversion to create a substitute arm. With it his other self reached across the gap, grasped him by the face and then threw him into a nearby hill. While somewhat jarring, this did no actual damage, allowing him to rise to his feet soon after.

"This is what I would expect from-!" he said with satisfaction before being interrupted.

"I cannot suppress it!" the White God declared before charging.

He knew what it was because he felt it as well.

The overwhelming urge to destroy a copy that looks like you but possesses ideals and beliefs completely contrary to your own. It was an instinct that every living thing possessed, though only those that were sentient could truly comprehend it.

"Yes, this impulse… how could we ever suppress it?" he asked rhetorically as he charged forward to meet his foe head on. "At this current time and place, in front of you I exist, as well as yourself. Because we are the same being, it only increases!"

Again and again he struck the White God, taking full advantage of the fact that maintaining a matter construct required focus, so repeated blows to the head would dispel it. It did not take his other long to realize this as well and back off but the distance would do him little good.

"And we guided the people with our hatred for each other!" the White God said, fighting with words rather than violence. "But what lies at the end?!"

"Peace and rest," he replied without hesitation.

"Peace and rest!?" the White God asked incredulously.

"When my followers manage to attain my level of power, they are freed from an infinite amount of isolation!" he replied with full conviction as he charged, kicking his other self to the ground. "That is their wish!"

"Just for such a thing…" the White God said, rising once more.

The words pricked a bit of anger from him, causing him to leap up and land on his other self's chest to pin him to the ground.

"Can you still not remember?!" he yelled, irritated at the ignorance of the White God.

He remembered.

Indeed, not a day that went by that he did not remember the events leading up to their division. Back then they had been one being, a being called 'Iceman' by the hated humans, and they were enjoying the wonderful free life they'd been given with Mikoto and their child. It wasn't much compared to what the people enjoyed now, just a rough enclosure made of leaves and branches, but it had been home enough for them. It had been months since they'd been freed from captivity by the one his wife considered her father and every day had brought new joy to their lives. Using what knowledge and skills they possessed they had made a life for themselves, bringing them both happiness they had never before known.

'Iceman' had honestly believed that it would go on forever.

What a fool they had been.

Humans so foul they dared to play at being gods would never let their 'specimens' remain free and so it was one day that they came. With the snap of a twig he'd heard them and, when they'd stood to identify what had caused the noise, they'd spotted them immediately. Clad in protective suits that would allow them to brave the planet's environment, and armed with weapons the filthy humans had advanced, and when they'd tried to tell Mikoto to run they were struck with a drugged dart. Even as the drug took effect they could see their wife being restrained and separated from their child despite the former's pleas.

When they'd awoken they'd found themselves naked, bound in restraints, in a lab much like the one that they'd escaped from months prior. They were greeted by one of the foul humans that impersonated a deity there but not anyone that they'd seen before. Naturally they'd tried to break free but surprisingly enough the restraints proved strong enough despite the strength they'd exhibited in the past. The human had bragged about how his kind had managed to create a replica of the mask they wore and how invigorating it felt once he placed it on his face. Physical capabilities and immunity to contagions were boosted beyond what humans had been able to achieve in previous attempts. The fool believed that, with further refinement and enhancement, it wouldn't be long before humanity would be able to leave their sealed environments and return to the surface.

Like they'd cared about ridiculous things like that!

All they'd cared about was the location and condition of their loved ones!

The human scientist had not understood at first but, when he had, he'd dared to call her a 'sample' and how wonderful it was that she'd actually given birth. They'd been furious because they'd been able to tell just by the tone what the human thought of Mikoto and their child. This was only confirmed moments later when the human said that their beloved wife and child had both been dissected, each of their body parts put into containers for future examination. They'd been numb to emotion as their mind processed what they'd been told and presented with a life without the ones that had meant the world to them. It'd been so incomprehensible that, on their own, it would've taken hours to come out of it on their own, but the foolish human male then spoke words that made it happen all at once.

'There's nothing to fret over. If those are the type you like, we can make ten, twenty or as many more as you like.'

Then the human had dared to start laughing. Laughing at the lives he'd ended. Laughing at the idea that Mikoto's life was a precious thing that could never in a million years be duplicated! LAUGHING AT THEIR SORROW AND PAIN!

Fury exploded into existence within them that rose to new heights with every passing second and gave no sign that it had any true limit. They'd asked the human, not really caring for an answer, if he really wanted a strong body that badly. It had been then that they'd truly tapped into the power they possessed for the first time, causing the restraints to crumble into nothingness even as it wrapped around them like a fog. Drawing forth more and more power, their body had changed to accommodate the energy, then, when they were satisfied, they reached out to every human on the planet to 'grant their wish'. One after the other they'd changed the humans from the bipedal forms they'd once been to formless blobs of slime with little more than instinct to guide them. Perhaps a few of them might retain fragments of their former lives in what passed for their new form's minds but never would they come close to what they'd once been.

That had been when the first sign of division had occurred for, while his pseudo self had reveled in the glorious revenge he'd taken against the humans, his partially formed other self had been horrified. The young White God had at first attempted to fight for control but when that had failed, his other self had reached out to Mutsumi, one of the other experiments created by the filthy humans, begging her to stop them or, if that was impossible, to destroy them. Thus, with an almost telepathic command to one of the orbital weapons the humans had in orbit, an energy blast many times stronger than any nuclear explosion fell from the sky to destroy the facility they'd been in.

It hadn't done any good.

Even a power great enough to remake the region in a single blow was not a threat to them when they were of one body.

In light of this failure Mutsumi chose to split the two of them into separate beings, then seal them deep within the land in an other dimensional jail. This was done most likely because, in their unified form, even the sealing method created by the humans would not have worked. The sealing method, however, did not last forever and the two of them periodically broke free to return to the world, coming into conflict with one another over and over again, with the loser being sealed away.

"It was all to guide our people towards a new light," he said as he countered the White God's attack.

"And that is bringing pain and sadness upon the people!" the White God yelled back even as he recovered from the blow he'd just received.

His other self tried to fight back but he no longer felt like debating their positions or indulging in further combat. Thus with a single move he impaled the White God upon his forearm spike, lifting him into the air to say a few final words.

"I shall guide the people!" he declared, full of intent.

"No! We are an unneeded being!" the White God declared, using his one remaining hand to grasp the forearm that he was impaled upon. "People will live by their own will!"

It was then that he felt it, the essence and flesh of the White God, beginning to merge with him like water flowing through his veins.

"What? You wish to become one with me again?!" he asked, unable to believe his other self would choose to do such a thing.

He knew not what his other self was doing but he did know that it would almost certainly interfere with his plans for the future, so he fought against the merger with every ounce of power he possessed. Sadly he did not possess the reserves of power that he'd once had when they had been the Iceman, so his willpower barely slowed the spread of his other's infection. In no time at all he was paralyzed and was unable to prevent the White God from delivering the masterstroke, separating his head from his body. With no mind to control the power it heeded the command of the White God more swiftly, dissolving into energy before circling his other self like a whirlwind. In no time at all they were once more one being but, unlike before, now it was he who was trapped inside with no control over what the physical body did.

This was INTOLERABLE!

He would not allow his other self to put an end to all the work he'd accomplished and all he still had yet to accomplish! With an almost bestial fury and determination he clawed at the force that kept him suppressed, determined to, if not force a separation between the two of them once more, then at least to gain control of their unified body. It was like trying to swim back to the surface of a lake filled with sand. For every inch of progress he managed more sand was moved in to keep him down, but he did not give up. It was his duty as the god of the tribes of the planet Earth to lead them to greatness through struggle and strife! He would not allow them to slip back into primitive existences or worse, follow the same path that their human creators had tread countless centuries ago!

When he heard that the White God intended to have the two citizens of Onkamiyamukai seal the both of them away, he fought all the harder. If they succeeded it could very well be millennia before he managed to escape once more and by then all his hard work would be rotten, forcing him to start from scratch. Desperation crept into his actions as he struggled to break free before the sealing method finished its work, but soon was forced to realize that so long as his other self suppressed him, it was pointless. He just needed ONE unrestrained moment, one opportunity when the White God's will was not keeping him contained, and then he realized how he could make it so. It was as he looked at the gathered allies of his other self that a thought occurred to him and, as he examined it, a plan formed.

It was risky and it could very well kill him, but if it succeeded like he hoped it would, this moment of weakness could lead to his greatest triumph ever.

Thus did he begin to gather what power was still his and, with a bit more fanfare than substance, he threw himself towards the open sky in order to make a ghostly visage of his head appear to the subordinates of his other self. As he'd predicted they all charged forth, their weapons intent on cutting flesh, thinking that it would prove enough to daze him, allowing the sealing method to finish its work.

Fools.

For all the advancements they'd made since being simple lab creations, they failed to understand that, in causing him pain, they also caused the White God pain. The only difference was that he'd been ready for it so, while his other self lost his focus to the pain, his mind was still quite clear. Knowing that he would have but seconds before his opportunity vanished, he seized control of all the power they possessed to the very last drop before reaching out through time and space for what he sought. Thanks to the tear in reality that the sealing method created, he was able to peer deep into the ether between dimensions in order to find what he sought.

 _Where… where is it?! Where is the hole that I seek!?_ he thought as he looked for what he needed even as his window of opportunity continued to shrink at an alarming rate.

It was just when he thought his gambit had been for nothing that he detected a small hole and he could sense from it humans. He knew not if they were anything like the monsters that had taken Mikoto from him but it mattered not since it indicated an Earth like his own on the other side.

That would do for his purposes.

Establishing a link with a suitable being on the other side, he threw his all into his plan, leaving his other self scrambling to regain his former position of dominance.

Too late!

 _ **Universe 05191998**_

 _ **Buffy's POV**_

"Now that's everything, huh? No weapons... No friends... No hope," Angelus said causally even as he pointed his sword in her direction. "Take all that away and what's left?"

What was left?

The sword that was supposed to shut down Acathla when used in combination with Angelus' blood had been knocked from her grasp and rested outside of her reach. She would not be able to get it back before the vampire that had once been her soul mate struck her down. She knew now all too well just how skilled he was with a blade and knew that, if he got serious, it wouldn't take him even two seconds to impale her or slit her throat open. She had given it her best, done her best to kill the part of her that still wanted to find a way to bring Angel back, but that had not been enough. Was it really worth struggling over more? Would it not be easier to accept defeat, let him kill her, before the Earth was swallowed into hell?

At this question her life went through her mind, the good times as well as the bad, showing her the sort of life she'd led up until now. Her childhood, her years at Hemery High School before transferring to Sunnydale High School, her determined efforts to retain a normal life amidst her Calling as the Slayer and the friends she'd made who had helped keep a smile on her face. All in all it was a life that had been better than anything she could have predicted when she'd first tried to predict her future. But when she contemplated the idea that it was about to come to an end, she found her heart singing in rejection of that outcome. There were so many more things that she wanted to do! So many things she wanted to experience! Not just her but everyone she knew without a doubt had dreams they wanted to make real more than anything else! How could she even think of giving up!?

So, as she sensed Angelus' sword tip towards her face, she snapped her eyes open even as she brought both hands up to catch the sharp piece of metal between them, stopping it in its tracks.

"Me," she replied to his earlier question before she shoved the blade back, hitting Angelus in the head with the hilt, causing him to stumble backwards.

Hopping to her feet she lashed out with a kick to his chest, causing him to stumble back even more. Now having enough room she reached down and picked up her sword before twirling it around to get a feel for it once more before thrusting it at him. He parried the strike but this only led to an exchange several blows, with each of them blocking the other. Spinning around she swung her sword down at him from above. Angelus held up his own sword to block but the amount of power she put behind caused him to fall to one knee. In an effort to break through his guard she raised her sword again, bringing it down, only for the vampire's guard to withstand it once more. Spinning around in the opposite direction she went with another tactic in the form of a roundhouse kick to his side, causing him to collapse to the ground.

Kicking him viciously, she sent him flying in through the door back into the mansion before hitting the floor and rolling to a stop. Before he could get all the way back to his feet she leapt in and swung her sword at him but somehow the vampire managed to parry her blow before regaining his footing. Blows were exchanged but the power of her resolve was pushing Angelus to his limits, resulting in him missing a block, getting his hand sliced as punishment. Vampires might not die from wounds that would kill a human but they still felt pain just like a human and therefore reacted like one when their skin was parted. Reflexively he dropped his sword to clutch at the wound and she took the opportunity to deliver a high kick that knocked him on his back before Acathla. As he rose to get back to his feet, looking to be just weak enough for her to deliver the final blow, she brought her sword up ready to impale him on it, thus ending the threat to Earth once and for all.

But then something happened she did not see coming causing her to stay her blow.

He suddenly gasped loudly and groaned in pain even as he looked her right in the eye. With no comprehension she watched his eyes glow bright red for an instant before going back to his normal dark ones. He looked up at her but, without saying a word, collapsed to the floor crying like someone who'd just lost everything. Staring down at him, she still held her sword raised behind her just in case this turned out to be some sort of trick. Angel raised himself back up, his eyes heavy with tears, and looked into her eyes with confusion in them.

"Buffy?" Angelus sobbed as he looked at her. "What's going on?"

He didn't sound like he had before, no cruel malice or mocking sadism, but she could not let this be her sole piece of evidence that circumstances had changed.

"Where are we? I-I don't remember," Angelus said with honesty coming through loud and clear.

He truly didn't know where he was despite how long the vampire had been living in it.

That could only mean…

"Angel?" she gasped softly even as the realization causes her to lower her sword to her side.

"You're hurt," he said after noticing the gash she'd gotten earlier and reaching out for it with a tender hand.

When he grasped her arm and stepped closer, she waited briefly for the inevitable 'gotcha' that Angelus would do at this point but it never came.

"Oh, Buffy…" he said as he suddenly hugged her tightly. "…God. I…I feel like I haven't seen you in months."

Closing her eyes, she let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding even as all doubt left her. A miracle had happened and somehow Angel had been returned to her. All the weight she'd been holding on her shoulders vanished as elation replaced it.

"Oh, my God, everything's so muddled. I..." he said even as he gripped her tighter as if not wanting to lose the one thing he did know. "Oh Buffy…"

She could hold it back no further and hugged him back with all her heart even as she closed her eyes to drown herself in feeling she had not experienced in months. It was only when she noticed a change in the air that she opened her eyes but what she saw made her wish that she'd kept them shut. Behind Angel the stone form of Acathla had changed, its mouth had opened, and a fiery portal was coming into being, growing in size with every spin.

She was too late.

She'd hoped, oh GOD how she'd hoped, that with Angel's return they'd be able to finish off Acathla together before returning to the others victorious. Now, though, she knew her happy ending was not to be and instead she would be forced to experience the most heartbreaking of tragedies in order to save the lives of everyone on Earth. Her strength was failing her thanks to the emotional pain she was experiencing and so she would one last time set it aside to do her duty as the Slayer.

After this… after this she was done.

Letting go of him, she stepped back, his mind and body too much of a mess to keep her in his embrace.

"What's happening?" he asked, confusion returning to his voice.

"Shh… don't worry about it," she said even as she reached out to tenderly brush her fingers over his lips and across his cheek.

With one hand she let her hand rest on his cheek before pulling him into a final kiss that they both enjoyed to the fullest. She maintained the act of love for as long as she dared before she broke it off to look him in the eye.

"I love you," she whispered, unable to say it louder for fear her resolve would crumble.

"I love you," he said in return, making her heart reverberate with the pain that was threatening to explode forth.

"Close your eyes," she said, knowing that he wouldn't hesitate to do as she asked.

From his point of view she was his one true love that he had fought alongside and cherished with all his metaphorical heart.

What reason did he have not to trust her?

As soon as he closed his eyes she brought back the sword in her hand, fully intent on impaling Angel through the stomach, thus meeting the requirements for shutting down the portal. However before she could make the most painful move of her life something happened that she had never seen before and thus did not know how to react to. While she had been expecting things to start getting sucked in but never did she ever think that something would come out of Acathla's vortex.

As a result she was completely overcome when the black energy came out with all the speed of an oncoming bus.

There was no time to evade. There was no time to even swing her sword in a futile attempt to fight the energy that actually caused the Slayer essence, something that she always felt within her, to recede in fear.

As whiteness enveloped her vision and feeling began to leave her body, all she could think of was of how her luck had finally run out.

 _ **Realm of the Gods aka Realm of the Powers That Be**_

 _ **Hephestus' POV**_

"THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!" Strife exclaimed even as every realm connected to the mortal one was in complete upheaval.

"Get a grip, Strife!" Ares growled even as he worked with the others to break out every last trick at their disposal to halt the progress of the dark energy that was sweeping over the planet Earth.

To say that they'd been blindsided by this would be like saying Aphrodite wrote the book on love. While they'd been a little pissed that Angel hadn't been around to stop the awakening of Acathla like they'd originally planned, Slayer Summers had been seen as a suitable substitute. With a little prodding from Whistler everything had been set in motion and, up until a minute ago, they'd all been watching what they'd thought would be the closing seconds of this year's apocalypse.

When the alarms had gone off, indicating the presence of an unknown energy type, they'd been surprised. Each of them had been around for millennia and the governing body called the Powers That Be had been around even longer. As a result they'd identified, analyzed and recorded countless forms of energy making the likelihood of them encountering something the system couldn't put a name to was unlikely to say the least. At once they'd scrambled to their stations, intent on getting ahold of the situation before it got out of hand, but by the time they had most of the United States of America had already been covered in the unique energy. Seeing the speed at which it was spreading, he'd known immediately that now wasn't the time to be waiting until they got a full read on the phenomena. Immediately he'd activated the protections that'd been placed on Earth to counter an invasion from hell in the form of ward barriers and magical fields meant to disperse cohesive energy fields.

Unlike the usual ones that were created by mortal beings and the few demon hybrids on Earth, these were both created as well as sustained by a lake of power provided by the Almighty. It would take a pureblood demon at full strength to stand against them but none of the sensors set up to notify them of such a being on Earth were producing warning pop-ups. Indeed, as everything popped into place, they could see the energy be affected by them and thought that it'd be only a matter of a minute or two before it was completely halted. Then they could get to work on eliminating it altogether before plugging up Acathla's vortex themselves. Normally it'd have been a violation of eternal law to directly solve the problem but, considering the situation, they'd been confident that both sides of the war would allow it.

Whether the world was saved or lost, neither Heaven nor Hell would permit outside interference.

When the wards had shattered and the magical fields underwent incredible drain, all of them had felt something akin to what humans usually felt when beholding something unheard of.

That had led him and the others to where they were right now: trying to scrape together a plan B.

"How long until the field completely encompasses the planet?" he asked even as he prepared to deploy some of his reserve weapons.

"Two minutes. Maybe three if Zeus' lightning barrier can slow it down," Apollo replied as he frantically worked at his station.

 _I wouldn't bet on that,_ he thought since if the foreign energy followed its usual pattern it'd slow down and THEN absorb Zeus' magic to the last drop.

Tapping the command to deploy his weapons, he looked at the map displaying the area where they'd land to see if he'd made the right choice or the wrong one. The weapons were designed to open time portals about the size of your average baseball stadium and pull everything within half a mile into it. It was extreme and some mortals might get caught up in it but, considering what the unknown energy had done thus far, he very much doubted that many were still alive to begin with. One by one icons indicating the successful activation of the weapons appeared on the map and for a moment his plan of 'send the dangerous energy anywhere but here' looked to have been the right one.

Right until they puttered out due to sudden instability issue.

"Well, that didn't go as planned!" he growled as he tried to come up with another idea.

"So what else is new!?" Apollo asked in frustration as he slammed his hands on his workstation. "It's like this energy is alive with how it's adapting!"

"Is that even possible?!" asked Athena as she looked through their extensive database for a solution.

"You tell us! You're the goddess of war and wisdom!" Discord bitched as she tried to fight chaos with chaos.

"Only by being connected to every single piece of it could someone control their magic like this!" Athena fired back even as she discarded one section of the database and began looking through another. "But it'd be impossible for one being to control all of this shit!"

No kidding!

While the rest of them had been talking the energy had finished covering North America and was moving across the Atlantic Ocean as well as across the Gulf of Mexico.

They were running out of time.

"NOT good," he said even as he looked through the inventory list of his weapon storehouses.

"And it just got worse," came a voice from the entrance to the room.

Turning his head, he watched one of his half-siblings enter with a look that never boded well when the God in question had it on his face.

"What do you mean, Janus?" he asked, hoping it wouldn't be as bad as his imagination thought it was.

"Points of contact for the pantheons native to North America have just gone dark. Portal points, communications alters and even methods of monitoring chosen mortals are failing to register Hephestus," Janus replied, sounding grim. "I've contacted the pantheons to see what luck they've had in reestablishing the points of contact. They've had none."

This was an unheard of crisis!

Many of those points of contact had been in place since the worship of those specific deities first made contact with mortals. As with most places of power the longer they existed, the more strength they gained until it took something of mammoth proportions to break them, usually a powerful ritual conducted by several experienced magic practitioners. To find out that their connection to the deities had been destroyed beyond the point of being reestablished…

"At the rate the energy is expanding across the planet, we'll lose all contact with it in less than two minutes," he said as his mind conjured images of what Earth would be like with no further divine intervention.

The only thing that didn't make him openly freak out was the fact that the other side, Lucifer and his bunch, were likely experiencing the same problems.

"It might be worse than you think," Janus said as he moved over to the main control console. "I have a suspicion I need to confirm."

Watching the god of beginnings and endings work, he watched as an image of the planet appeared and while at first it only showed the alien energy sweeping over the planet that was soon swept aside to focus on just the planet. Curious, he stepped closer to his fellow deity to see what concerned Janus so much. It was only when the probability filter was added to the scan of the planet that he got his first clue as to what concerned the Roman deity was so worried about. Normally the probability filter was used on a specific regions or people to let them plan their strategies with maximum efficiency. To his knowledge it'd never been done on the planet as a whole due to the sheer number of life forms and variables involved. However Janus looked to be avoiding the life forms entirely and focusing entirely on the planet. Normally this would barely get a blip from the probability filter because, while the planet was ever-changing, it happened in a predictable manner with few true surprises.

Now, though, the filter was giving off spikes more at home on a seismograph recording of an earthquake measuring a nine on the Richter scale.

"It's even worse than I thought," Janus said as he slumped at the console. "This is the end."

"What do you mean?" he asked, not liking what he was hearing one bit.

"Since the unknown energy phenomena first showed itself I've been getting steadily stronger. When I investigated to find out which of my domains was responsible it turned out to be transitions," Janus replied as he turned around a despondent look on both his faces. "However the tools on Roman Olympus were incapable of providing me with answers so I came here. I suspected it might be bad but I never thought it would be this bad. The planet is preparing to leave this reality."

"WHAT!?" he and everyone else in the room exclaimed at the top of their divine lungs.

"I didn't want to believe it myself but the signs are all there. The loss of contact with the mortals via mystical means, the probability filter giving off such violent readings and… the information I gleaned from the mind of Slayer Summers." Janus explained with some reluctance.

Understandable since Slayer Summers and her allies were not exactly the favored mortals of their august body. Buffy Summers had never been what they'd considered an ideal Slayer but such was often the case when they were forced to Call a girl who had not been raised by the Watcher's Council. Contrary to what some might think, the selection of a Slayer from the long list of potentials was far from random and was in fact a grueling process of review before the choice was made. At the time of the previous Slayer's death they'd narrowed down the possibilities to two: Buffy Summers and a girl named Kennedy. The latter was younger than Summers by several years and had a somewhat spoiled personality thanks to her rich parents, while the former was from an upper middle class family who'd proven she could be serious when the situation required it. In the end they'd chosen Summers but the girl's refusal to accept her Calling fully was a periodic source of frustration for all of them. Still, they had taken some solace from the fact that she wouldn't be around long. Slayers, regardless of how talented they were, never lived very long once they were Called.

Precisely as they'd designed the system along with the original founders of the group that over time evolved into what was now the Watcher's Council.

It had been known from the moment it had been proposed that taking a fragment of an Old One's essence and bind it to the soul of a human host that there was a danger. The Old Ones were demons of incredible power and it had taken almost everything the forces of light possessed to rid the world of them. While the fragment would bestow upon the girl who wielded it the ability to fight what hellish half-breeds remained and prevent the return of the evil exiled to other dimensions, there was also a risk.

The risk was that, given enough time, the fragment might grow strong enough to swallow the host whole, turning she who was once a savior into a monster.

In the early years that the Slayer existed they took the time to measure precisely how long it was before the girl ceased to care about human beings and devoted herself to simply enjoying murder. It was determined that their late teens was when the taint began to manifest itself and so they made certain that each Called girl would not reach the dangerous age. They did this via three methods that for centuries had proven quite effective.

First they severed all contact the girl had with humanity, save the Watchers, in order to eliminate her reason to live. Human beings needed bonds such as love, friendship and kinship in order to maintain a grip on hope when all else failed. Without them their soul slowly died until it welcomed death in order to be released from the misery that drowned them in life.

Second they ensured that only the bare minimum support was provided to the Called Slayer in the form of books and a single Watcher to guide her even as they monitored her for signs of the taint gaining dominance. Of course during the times in which the world threatened to end all support was provided in order to ensure that she prevailed. For the rest of the time she was sent after demons of increasing deadliness in the hopes that one of them would succeed in killing her. Should she manage to somehow survive to the age of eighteen, they had one final means of ensuring that the fragment did not consume the host.

The Cruciamentum.

In the time leading up to her eighteenth birthday the Slayer would be placed under hypnosis before receiving injections comprised of adrenal suppressants and muscle relaxants. Eventually she would lose all of her Slayer powers and be made to face an opponent of the Council's choosing with only her wits to defend her. Only the leading members of the Council knew the true purpose of the test, with the rest being told a convenient cover story. They were told that it was a test meant to provide the Slayer with a way to prove that she was more than just her physical prowess and that her mind was sharp enough to defeat the demons. They were told that if a Slayer passed the test, she could never again have her methods or her choices questioned.

The truth was that the Cruciamentum was a method execution.

Every demon the Council chose to pit against the Slayer was specifically chosen so that no amount of cunning or strategy would allow them to survive.

Should one actually manage survive the test, the Council wet works team would kill her before the drugs in her system successfully left her system enough to regain her former strength.

Most of them were looking forward to the day when they would no longer need to worry about the headaches she caused.

However he knew that Janus secretly liked the chaos the girl created, along with her friends, so he supposed it was only natural that the deity would think to look for information through her.

"The energy that seeks to envelope the Earth came from the portal of Acathla. Before it overwhelmed her, Slayer Summers sensed overwhelming evil from it, evil that I have only ever sensed once before… in an Old One," Janus explained, moving past the looks the others were giving the Roman. "Not just any Old One but one that could've challenged Illyria, God-King of the Primordium at the height of her power."

"Ridiculous! Even she could not make an entire planet leave its designated place in reality!" Ares yelled incredulously even though there was a hint of fear in his voice.

"Not safely and not alone, but if such a being were to tap into the magic of other sources, merge with them, it could be done. I sense that the being behind this is doing this out of desperation as well as ambition," Janus said, ignoring the war god's words. "It does not care that it could do itself harm by taking this action. All that matters to it is that it wins."

"If you are right, my old friend, then there is nothing we can do," he said, trusting the perceptions and theory of his friend. "All the means we have available to us will only feed this being and hasten the departure of Earth. The End Times have arrived in a manner none of has foresaw."

"No. There is one more thing that we can do," Janus said with a gentle shake of his head. "One final act we can perform as guardians of the light and agents of the Almighty's will. We can sow the seeds for this being's defeat."

"How?" he asked, a faint light of hope dimming the darkness of despair within him.

"We can empower them…" Janus replied with a wave of his hand causing five points of light to appear then expand causing all to look away, "…and ensure that wherever the Earth goes it will still have protectors. That light will still oppose darkness."

When the light of summoning faded all looked to see who had been brought before them and when he saw their faces he instantly knew their names.

Buffy Summers.

Willow Rosenberg.

Alexander 'Xander' Harris.

Rupert 'Ripper' Giles.

Cordelia Chase.

Together they formed what could be considered the core of the group that the teenagers had christened 'The Scoobies' and were the last people the gathering of deities would have chosen to place their hopes in.

"THEM! You must be joking!" Ares exclaimed in clear opposition. "Those loose cannons will not end the chaos; they will only add more fuel to the fire! Especially HIM!"

Who was HIM? Xander Harris, of course.

The teenager whom no one respected and all believed would amount to no more than what his father had turned himself into. A teenager who, instead of conforming and abiding by the words of prophecy, succeeded in breaking it, resulting in the twinning of the Slayer line. He was cursed by those who guided the Earth's future through prophecy, whose plans spanned centuries of time, and only the Almighty's untouchable rules concerning free will kept him safe from reprisals.

"It is because of their ability defy destiny and sow chaos that they are the ones best suited to oppose this being. Great power begets great ambition and for those who care not for any but themselves, their plans become dark indeed," Janus stated, never once losing his cool. "However plans imply order, structure, and what better weapon is there to counter it then the chaos these five will bring. We need only provide them with what they lack to confront this being and the rest will take care of itself. What say you all?"

Time was growing short.

The time of Earth's departure rapidly approaching and a choice needed to be made before then.

In the end carefully debated and ascertained answers would take too long.

That left only instinct.

Walking over to his station, he quickly began typing commands accessing his personal armory containing weapons he had acquired throughout the centuries. With a final command his selections appeared next to the one he thought would be a suitable match.

For Slayer Summers a special guandao from China still possessing a bit of preserved frost on it since like most collectors he insisted on preserving his possessions in ideal condition.

For Willow Rosenberg he provided two weapons, a spear given from mother to son to vanquish an evil mythological lord, and a bow promised to grant victory by a teacher to his student, in order to keep enemies from reaching her less than warrior-like form.

For Rupert Giles he bestowed a Chinese jian double-edged straight sword that had once belonged to one who passed ten trials before receiving a truly rare reward. Then, on a whim, he added a metal rod golden in color and measuring roughly six feet long but fortunately the rumor of it weighing eight tons was just an outsider's appraisal. In truth the extreme weight was a mix of a security precaution to keep anyone else from wielding it and a means to increase the destructive force of its blows. The owner that mortals attached the weapon to had lost it to him in a poker game about a century ago and had been trying to win it back ever since.

It would do more good in Ripper's hands and the hairy fool might even be pleased with the new arrangement.

For Cordelia Chase, a beautiful young woman of high society, a bow once owned by one that eventually became the inspiration for Tolkein's grey pilgrim. While giving her an edged weapon or a war hammer might be more appropriate given her personality, she was not a trained fighter. Better for her to keep her distance from danger than put her right next to it.

Finally he came to Alexander 'No middle name admitted' Harris, who was both the member of the group he was most betting on to disrupt the plans of the evil being and the one he was most wary about. After all, not just anyone could shatter a prophecy of the Powers with just his determination and courage. Indeed, the mere fact that he could shatter a plan devised by deities meant that any intent he might start with regarding the lad would like go astray sooner or later. With a mental shrug, though, and keeping in mind where he planned to send the young man, he selected a blade from the homeland of the man who'd be the boy's teacher. He had to chuckle for a moment at how the priests of Atsuta thought that they still had the blade discovered by his pal Susanoo. It was even more amusing that many mortal scholars dismissed its true form simply because their 'evidence' made it clear that the legend was first told centuries before the period the weapon type was first historically made.

It would truly be a suitable blade for Harris considering the style of kenjutsu he would be taught.

"You really are betting everything on these five, aren't you?" he asked as he finished bonding the weapons to their new owners.

"Can we really afford not to at this point?" Janus asked in reply, pointing to the display that indicated that the energy was less than a minute away from completely covering the Earth.

"No. I guess we can't," he replied, nodding in agreement.

"Well, you'd best send them down now," Ares grumbled since he probably couldn't come up with a better idea. "I doubt you'll be able to once we're completely cut off from Earth by the energy."

"Oh, quit huffing, Ares," Janus said, chidingly to the war god. "As much as you and the others might despise this group for their lack of conformity, it's just that sort of temperament they'll need. When an enemy is unknown to all, sometimes all that can defeat it are those unwilling to compromise even in the face of great danger."

"Assuming they don't do something unpredictable like, say, defect to the other side?" Ares snapped, clearly irritated by the Roman deity's words.

"They would never do such a thing and you know it," Janus said as the timer reached thirty seconds. "All of them made the conscious choice to oppose evil and have not wavered. They will not."

"Janus? The timer?" he pointed out to his friend not wanting the preparations to be for nothing.

"Timer? Oh, yes. Just one more thing needs doing," Janus said before extending his right hand towards the five, discharging five spheres, one going to each mortal.

When the spheres were absorbed into the containment pods of energy surrounding the humans, an icon flashed briefly before disappearing.

For Slayer Summers the icon of a horse.

For Willow Rosenberg the icon of an eagle.

For Rupert Giles the icon of a wolf.

For Cordelia Chase the icon of a jaguar.

And for Alexander Harris an icon that was as different from the others as it was unique… a white dragon at the center of a perfect purple Chrysanthemum seal.

It happened so quickly that all the others in the room had likely perceived were the icons but, for a divine craftsman such as himself, his eyes perceived one further detail before the mortals vanished from the room.

"What the HELL was that?!" Ares asked, whirling towards Janus with suspicion.

"Merely providing a little extra spice to the mix while also remaining true to a promise made to an old friend," Janus replied with a casual tone.

"Janus!" Ares snapped, not willing to let this slide even though there's nothing he could do at this point.

"As the god of beginnings and endings I am afforded a degree of… insight into what comes after the transition. When I looked into the memories of Slayer Summers, I not only saw the source of the Earth's departure but also where the Earth was going," Janus replied, changing to a more serious tone. "Trust me when I say that the alterations I've added to the mix are essential to a positive resolution to the crisis."

"And you didn't tell us about this until NOW when it was too late?!" Ares asked, sounding determined to vent his storm of emotions upon the two faced Roman deity.

"I figured most of you were already pissed at who I'd chosen to stand against this evil. Didn't see a need to make things worse for myself by letting you know about details you couldn't do anything about," Janus replied with a shrug before turning to leave. "I'll see you all after the Almighty decides how to handle this unexpected wrinkle in the cosmic scheme of things."

With that the two faced Roman deity teleported out to the ethereal plane where the Roman version of Mount Olympus resided, leaving Ares upset and him shaking his head in exasperation.

 _Never could settle for 'good enough' could you, Janus?_ he thought, deciding to duck out before Ares targeted him for his fury. _You just had to push the envelope a bit further!_

If it wasn't for Janus' ability to acquire rare and useful materials for his creations, he would've washed his hands of the guy centuries ago.

 _ **A Forest Outside Kyoto**_

"Just when I thought I could live my final years in peace…" he thought as the violent earthquake stopped and the skies started to calm down.

He had lived a long time, longer than he wanted to if he was honest with himself, but such was the natural consequence of successfully mastering his specific style of kenjutsu. Most people would've taken advantage of a longer than normal lifespan to travel the world, experience all its wonders and meet interesting people.

He was not most people.

He preferred a solitary life, perfecting his pottery hobby while enjoying the peaceful and simple lifestyle the forest provided. With the location of his modest home known only to the few people he actually didn't mind interacting with that much, he'd enjoyed long periods of peace broken up by the few times he'd been forced to move due to land being developed by businesses. It was unfortunate that the lifestyle of a hermit meant that you didn't own land and therefore meant that you couldn't tell the suits or the men driving the bulldozers to go take a hike. Nevertheless, he managed to avoid hearing about the problems of the world for quite some time and anyone who came looking to forcefully enlighten him were 'politely' turned away.

If they were demons or the like, he took the opportunity to practice his swordsmanship to the fullest.

So it was something of a surprise to him when out of nowhere mere minutes ago all hell broke loose as the most powerful earthquake he could ever remember experiencing rocked the land while the sky above him looked like it might start raining balls of flame at any moment. However the greatest threat came not from the sky above or the earth below but rather from the east as a malevolent ki fouler than any he had felt since inheriting the title of Master from his predecessor. Knowing that not mounting a defense would prove harmful he unleashed the full might of his ki in the form of a protective sphere with his sword, as always, pointed in the direction of the threat. When the dark ki slammed into his own, he felt himself for the first time in a VERY long time being pushed to his limits and, for a moment, thought that he would be overwhelmed.

That was until he ceased trying to match the force assailing him strength against strength, instead reshaping his protection into a narrow arrowhead, diverting the energy off to the side. Given that the dark ki was not sentient and therefore was not picking him specifically as the target of its wrath, it followed the path of least resistance, lightening the load on his protection considerably.

 _Still, I'm glad that it's gone,_ he thought as he became aware of some sores. _I appear to be quite out of practice with that technique._

That was most likely because it'd been so long since he'd been in a situation where using one's ki for defense in that manner was necessary.

Masters of his style of kenjutsu met few capable of surviving the first couple of minutes battling them and fewer still proficient enough with a blade to make the fight a serious one.

Only someone who could be considered an equal required that a Master go all out in a fight to the death.

Looking about, he was annoyed to find that the home he'd crafted for himself decades ago had been reduced to shambles, with him being skeptical as to whether or not it was even worth salvaging. The surrounding forest wasn't much better, with only a random tree still perfectly vertical and the rest pointing every direction EXCEPT directly up. Combined with new slopes, fissures and rocky outcroppings, it made him sarcastically think about how difficult it'd be now for anyone to get to him until he realized that this was likely not limited to just the area he lived in. All of Japan could very well have been caught up in it, with the damage being quite extensive to the major cities. As much as he disliked socializing with others, it was the mandate of the masters of his style of kenjutsu to protect people from suffering.

So long as he did not align himself with a political or economic power in the process that is.

His stupid previous apprentice had taken far too long to realize this one fundamental truth about their style.

 _Guess I'd better salvage what training necessities I can from the shack my homes turned into,_ he thought, his mind made up. _It's going to take some time to reach Kyoto with all this mess in the way._

However before he could take more than a step towards his home he sensed a spike of energy that caused him to leap backwards in response to his many years of training. Less than a second later light exploded out of thin air, forcing him to bring up his cape to shield his eyes from its glare, until it'd dimmed enough not to be harmful. What he saw immediately triggered his instincts that often warned him when something truly troublesome had been dropped in his lap. Laying on the ground, apparently unconscious, was a young man of no more than seventeen summers dressed in modern clothing and, of all things, an egg the size of your average car tire resting against the lad's hip.

However the item that had his attention the most though was the rolled up scroll on the young man's chest for he had seen the like only three times before. Each time he'd wound up desiring nothing more than to find the asshole who'd sent it to him so he could see if he could kill a god. At the same time, though, each of those adventures had been necessary and, with the world as it was, he'd been the only one capable of doing what needed to be done.

 _What do you want NOW, Janus?_ he thought to himself as he walked over to the young man and picked up the scroll.

He felt the familiar warmth of the scroll's magic confirming that he was the one who was supposed to read the contents and then, as before, the seal dissolved. Unrolling it he saw the familiar handwriting but at least this time the two faced sonuvabitch was kind enough to write his message in his preferred language: Shōwa period Japanese.

 _My dear friend Hiko Seijūrō XIII_

 _Now, as much as I'd like to write pages upon pages telling you about what's been going on since we last saw one another, I'm afraid that the situation is a little more serious. It seems that during an effort to prevent the stone remains of the demon Acathla from opening a portal big enough to swallow the world whole, something unforeseen occurred. Malevolent energy from another reality poured through the small fissure and, before we knew it, our new visitor was spreading across the planet._

 _Naturally we threw the usual spells, wards and weapons at it but they didn't work. The foreign energy was not slowed by our efforts but in fact fed on the magic that made them up. Indeed it wasn't just the obstacles and weapons brought to bear against it that it drained but every mystical artifact it came into contact with. With every second that passed our connections to the mortal world were being severed._

 _But that wasn't the most terrible part._

 _The most terrible part was the fact that the Earth was going someplace and we weren't being taken along for the ride._

 _Yes, you heard right: whatever force was behind the energy spilling out of Acathla's portal wanted to take an ENTIRE PLANET on a trip!_

 _Never had that happen before._

 _ANYway, with the planet going bye-bye, I figured the best thing to do would be to make sure the pile of shit responsible didn't have everything go his way, so I selected a group of champions, gave them what they needed, and sent them on their way. Now the mortals have it right when they say that it's not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket so I spaced out their landing coordinates so that they'd wind up where they could do the most good._

 _Lucky you you've got one of my favorites: Alexander LaVelle Harris._

 _Breaker of an official prophecy, ally to the current Slayer and one of the luckiest young men I've ever encountered. Of course it usually goes back and forth between good luck or bad luck, with no real detectable pattern, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing._

 _I have sent him to you with a request: teach him. Teach him the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū style of kenjutsu._

 _I know you swore never to take on another apprentice after the death of Himura Kenshin, but for what Alexander will face, he will need training only you can give him. The threat he will face is great but its abilities beyond transporting a planet as well as consuming magic are unknown. Therefore all that can be done is to prepare the young man as best as can be done. As the last living master of the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū style of swordsmanship, find it within yourself to pass down your teachings one last time. Prepare this young man for the challenges ahead as only you can._

 _I think you'll find him up to the challenge._

 _In the end, though, I do not know if you will agree to my request, but even if you do not, know that I have always been grateful for the aid you have given me over the years._

 _Your friend,_

 _Janus_

 _PS-You might want to take two steps to the right._

Knowing that even if you hate them that when a god tells you to do something you'd best do it, he immediately stepped to the right. Not even a second after he did so something dropped from the sky, landing on the side of the young man opposite the unusually large egg. Looking at the object, he was intrigued to see that it was a sheathed katana and he could tell immediately that every part of it had been expertly crafted. Having wielded and on been on the receiving end of many katana's during his long life, he was quite familiar with the differences in how each was made, ranging from materials used to the skill of the swordsmith who made them. THIS katana and its sheath looked to be of sufficient quality that, had the man not died centuries ago, he would've said it had been made by none other than Priest Gorō Masamune himself. He had seen the man's work a few times during his travels, either on display in some noble's home or wielded by those who thought that the sword made the warrior.

Those fools never made the same mistake twice, one way or another.

Interested in learning more, he reached down to grasp the hilt of the katana in order to pull the blade from its sheath so that he could see it but, just before his fingers would've gotten close enough, something unexpected happened. Arcs of blue energy sprung into being, dancing along the hilt, but instead of the crackle he'd expected the sound he heard was more akin to the hiss of a serpent. This was only further reinforced when the energy that looked like electricity coalesced for a moment, taking on the loose appearance of a multi-headed serpent. With speed gained through endless training he managed to pull his hand out of reach and, in response to this, the energy immediately began to settle before fading away entirely.

This phenomena and the expert craftsmanship rang a chord within him and, when he followed the vibrations back to the memory that caused them, the shock he received was enough to break his composure.

"Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi…" he gasped in shock at being in the presence of such a legendary katana.

Putting his composure back together, he viewed the situation in a new light.

For Janus to send such a powerful blade along with Mister Harris indicated how serious the situation was and, unless he was mistaken, the energy he just witness would manifest if anyone other than the young man reached for the sword with the intent to unsheathe it. Personally he would've made it so that no one but the chosen wielder could lay a finger on it regardless of intent but he supposed that the loophole was in case the sword ever needed to be brought to the young man.

 _I guess that's one lesson I'll have to pound into the idiot,_ he thought as he reconsidered his plans for the future. _A true swordsman never goes anywhere without his katana, nor does he allow it to be taken from him._

While he would be lying if he said that he didn't still possess some reservations about taking on another student, he efficiently wiped them from his mind. If he intended to teach the unconscious young man before him, he couldn't have any hesitation or distractions impairing his decisions if he wanted to do a proper job.

Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū was not a style that allowed for mistakes.

 _I'll also have to make sure that Mister Harris doesn't leave before he completes his training,_ he thought, remembering a certain rurouni. _It would put a far finer end to things than it did with Kenshin._

Note: I know some readers will say that the deity featured in Utawarerumono is not powerful enough to do what he's done in this story. My response? Prove it. Take a canon fact from the manga or the anime that clearly shows the limits of what the deity is capable of and proves that he could not do what he's done in this chapter. Even if you do find some sliver of evidence I will simply stipulate that by draining the mystical defences of the gods and adding their strength to his own the deity had more than enough power to pull off his plan.

In any case I hope you will wind up liking the story regardless. C YA!


	2. Change isn't always a good thing

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my stories. Therefore I would greatly appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can assure you that my total net worth wouldn't cover even half of your legal fees.

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Uhhhh… gotta remember to shut the window,_ he thought as a breeze disturbed his slumber.

Reaching for his bedcovers, he pulled them tighter around him to maintain the comfortable warmth that allowed him to slumber peacefully. However when he grasped them he immediately noticed that they didn't feel like the ones he slept in night after night. Indeed the texture and consistency didn't match. This wrinkle in what his mind registered as normal tugged him further from his slumber and after that it all went downhill since his mind had come too far to retreat to the peace that sleep provided.

Opening his eyes, he let them wander and take everything in, the list of inconsistencies with what he remembered of the room where he usually fell asleep continued to grow bigger. From what he could tell he was in a simple one room house built in a manner that did not belong anywhere in the United States. For one there was no drywall and for another he couldn't see anything that required plugging into, though there were some things that he figured had to be battery powered. When you added in various other implements that looked like they'd been made before consumerism created a market where nothing was intended to last, home this was not.

"What the…" he muttered as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

Now that his head was off the ground he could see more and the interior of the house that he was in looked rather banged up like it'd been through an earthquake. There were cracks everywhere and a pile of broken pottery in the corner, all of which indicated that the quake had happened recently, perhaps even within the last day or two. When he looked down he saw the simple sheets that'd prodded him back to the waking world but it was when he took in his clothes that a metaphorical lightning bolt crackled through his brain, triggering recollection.

The infiltration of the Crawford street mansion, freeing Giles from his bonds and the dark energy that'd been scary enough to cause his hyena echo to streak to the deepest part of his mind and hide. He didn't remember really what happened after that or how he got to where he was but now that he was up, he needed to get some answers so he could get back to Sunnydale. Whatever the energy had been, it was trouble with a capital T and the gang would need to come together like never before to find a way to protect the world from it.

Tossing the covers he'd been under aside he got to his feet before heading for the door, hoping that there was someone outside who could explain where he was. Once he passed through the door, though, he had to wonder at the upheaval he could see because, unlike the usual forest landscape he'd seen when he'd gone camping with Jesse, this one was a mess. Trees had either fallen completely over, were leaning in one direction or another or had the ground beneath them elevated a few feet, leaving a very uneven landscape. It definitely didn't remind him of any place he'd been in or around Sunnydale, so it left him wondering just where he'd been sent by the dark energy.

He was about to turn his head to look for a person or even a road to a city when out of nowhere he sensed danger akin to when Larry was about to cheap shot him or some demon appeared out of nowhere and attacked him in the same move. He knew he hadn't seen any danger coming from directly in front of him so that left the sides or behind, so in an effort to evade the attack he dove forward into a roll. As soon as his feet were under him again he whirled around, intent on finding out what had tried to attack him. However before his eyes could settle on the area around where he'd been something compact slammed into him, forcing the air from his lungs and rendering his entire body numb. As a result he fell to the ground in a heap as his brain tried to force his lungs to work like they were supposed to. It was as he did this that he heard the sound of footsteps walking away from him for a few steps before stopping.

"You sensed my intent to strike and evaded my initial strike but you foolishly thought that six or seven feet was far enough away to be safe," a man's voice said, sounding like a gray haired soldier's but possessing strength associated with someone in his prime. "Also, rolling away like that leaves you vulnerable. You should never do it before first doing something to distract your opponent with so you gain the time needed to raise your guard successfully. Not as inept as my last student but that's not saying much."

Turning his gaze towards the voice, he beheld a man who looked to be in his early sixties dressed in black pants, a short sleeved blue shirt and old fashioned boots that looked like they belonged in a museum. With hair that went a little past the shoulders and was tied into a ponytail with a ragged piece of leather, the man looked like someone who'd turned his back on the modern world. It aroused his curiosity towards learning why the man had done so but he pushed the idea of inquiring aside since he figured that it was none of his business.

"Um… thanks? Who are you anyway and where am I?" he asked, figuring moving things along was the smartest move.

"My name is Hiko Seijūrō and you are about two hours walk from the outskirts of Kyoto," Seijuro replied, half turned towards him with evaluating almost black brown eyes.

"Kyoto! But that's in Japan!" he exclaimed in shock at being on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

"Yes it is. So?" Seijuro asked as though it was a common thing to travel between countries while unconscious.

"Well last time I was awake I was in Sunnydale, California, in America. I don't remember buying a plane ticket, much less getting here," he replied, still trying to reconcile such a drastic shift in locations.

"You wouldn't have with Janus being behind your travel arrangements," Seijuro said, sounding like he still didn't know what there was to get excited about.

 _Janus? Wasn't that the god that Giles said powered the Halloween spell?_ he thought as the bell of familiarity went off in his head. _But it can't be THE Janus. Must be someone using the same name._

"So this guy Janus picked me up off the ground, tossed me on a plane and brought me here… why?" he asked, hoping to figure out what was going on so he could figure out what to do next.

Seijuro just shook his head in disappointment, as though he'd just failed some test that'd been placed before him.

"Because the world has changed and he has asked me to make you strong enough to survive it," Seijuro replied, turning to face him more fully. "Getting me to travel to your hometown would've taken too long since my passport expired a long time ago, along with the rest of my government paperwork. It was probably more efficient in Janus' mind to simply bring you to me."

"What do you mean the world's changed?" he asked casually as he covertly glanced about.

Had Buffy failed to stop Acathla from opening his big mouth? No. If that were the case they'd all be in hell and he definitely didn't consider the landscape around him to be hell. That weird energy, maybe? If it'd somehow pulled a global switcheroo with every human on the planet then that'd certainly cause quite a bit of confusion, but any 'change' would be temporary. With things like money transfers and embassies of every country in almost all of the countries on the planet returning home should be easy.

"I do not know the details, merely the broad strokes," Seijuro replied as he reached into his pant pocket to retrieve a scroll. "An evil ki whose origin I do not know swept over the planet and sought to take it somewhere else. The aftermath of that chaos is what you see around you."

"Bullshit! Nothing can move an entire PLANET!" he exclaimed, unwilling to believe what he'd been told. "I don't care how badass a demon is or how hopped up on the dark mojo someone is, NO WAY can they do something like that!"

It just wasn't possible!

He might not be a bookworm like Giles with entire encyclopedias worth of supernatural facts in his head but he knew that if anyone had that kind of power they would've conquered or destroyed the world long before. Even badass vamps with reps like The Master, Spike or Angelus weren't strong enough to affect something bigger than a city on their own. Only by tapping into monsters like The Judge or Acathla could they reach many times further to fulfill their evil dreams. He was pretty sure that if there was any mojo, demon or prophecy connected to stealing an entire planet, the Watcher's Council would've done something about it decades ago. Either sealed it away or vanquished it so that the Earth could remain safe. No way could so gigantic a threat pop up out of nowhere without anyone being the wiser.

"Ordinarily I'd agree with you but only a fool denies the truth when it stares him in the face," Seijuro said with a pinch of understanding. "I've lived in this forest for over fifteen years so I know it well. I cannot call what it is anything other than changed. The odds of only this forest being altered are small, wouldn't you say?"

He couldn't argue with that last bit.

He remembered Giles mentioning how affecting a large area required vast amounts of magic since not only did you have to force objects out of their natural form but ensure that they would stay that way. Those who could do the first but not the last were required to provide a constant flow of energy to keep the area they altered from slipping back to its natural state. However even those capable of doing both almost never possessed the internal power needed and often looked to outside sources to make up for what they lacked. Living sacrifices, artifacts that'd absorbed a great deal of power over time, deities who might be interested, and sometimes the energy of the planet itself. When he'd asked the Watcher what was the most impressive example he'd heard of the man had mentioned a sorcerer from the thirteenth century who'd used rain to not only spy on the people of a small country but also conquer it. He'd scoffed at the idea of rain doing such a thing but G-Man had said each drop of rain had been connected to the sorcerer both in terms of his senses as well as his spirit. Therefore it was simple to use the fragments of water to drown someone or by turning it into ice, make it into a barrage of sharp arrowheads capable of piercing wood.

In the end though the sorcerer overestimated his capabilities and killed himself by draining every drop of his magic in order to defeat a champion that'd come to defeat him.

So the very idea that anyone could alter an entire planet was ridiculous but at the same time he couldn't think of anyone who'd want to turn a forest into what this one looked like at the moment. The only thing that made sense was that the forest got hit as collateral damage alongside the real target.

 _Whatever! Whatever some dipshit sorcerer wants to do here in Japan has nothing to do with me,_ he thought, mentally shaking his head to shake free the meaningless thoughts. _I'm sidekick material, not a hero. Japan's probably got plenty of champions who could handle this better than me._

If there was one thing he'd learned after so many patrols with Buffy it was that, as determined as he was to fight against the forces of darkness, he just didn't have what it took to fight them on even ground. The best he could manage was to keep them busy until Buffy could swoop in to kick their butts. Sure, he might get lucky a few times but that was only because the vamps underestimated him or the demons were so stupid they fell for idiotic tricks like the 'what the hell is that?' trick. The few times he'd actually tried to attack an enemy that had a decent brain in their heads and the common sense not to underestimate a foe he'd gotten his ass kicked.

He knew his place was to be a member of the support team, backing up the real hero however he could.

"Sorry your forest got trashed but it's got nothing to do with me," he said as he looked about, trying to figure out the right direction to walk in. "Just point me in the direction of Kyoto. I've got friends that're probably worried sick 'cause they don't know where I am and, as much of a hellhole as it is, Sunnydale's still my home."

"And just how do you plan on getting home, assuming you manage to get to Kyoto?" Seijuro asked with some condescension. "Swim?"

"Nope. I'll do a collect call to a friend of mine and ask for a loan to get a plane ride home," he replied with a shake of his head. "I'll probably wind up having to work it off for a couple of years but I can handle it."

For a moment it looked as though Seijuro would refuse to give him the information but with a single blink the man's expression changed minutely.

"Kyoto can be found in that direction," Seijuro said, pointing off to the right. "Continue in that direction for two hours or so. Be warned, though, that the woods can be dangerous for a city boy. Keep your wits about you."

With that the old man turned away from him to enter into his home, apparently deciding to ignore him from that point forward. A little on the rude side but he could tell that Seijuro wasn't a people person so it wasn't much of a surprise.

 _Well I better get going,_ he thought as he began to walk in the direction the old man had pointed in. _It might be midday but if I drag my feet too much, I won't get to Kyoto before sunset._

Wandering around the woods after dark was not something he wanted to deal with.

 _ **A Short While Later**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Man! What the hell happened here?_ he thought as he climbed over a fallen tree to keep taking the most direct route to Kyoto.

It'd been an hour since he'd left Seijuro's little hut in the middle of nowhere and since then he'd seen such signs of upheaval in the land that were too random to have been planned by anyone. More than that, he hadn't seen anything bigger than a squirrel or sparrow. He'd heard how certain animals could sense that an earthquake was going to happen soon and evacuated the area in order to get to safety. If that was true then that could explain why he'd seen so few critters about.

Not that he was complaining, of course.

He didn't have a single weapon on him, so if wolves or some other predator decided he'd make a good meal his only means of survival would be in the hope that he'd manage to outrun them.

Then again maybe he was giving the TV shows and movies he'd seen of the wild too much credit. Sure, in just about every episode or movie he'd watched involving the woods the main characters almost always ran into some dangerous animal but that was mostly just scripted to keep the audience entertained. He was sure that in reality running into a dangerous animal was more random in nature with the type you ran into being equally up to chance. So long as he kept his eyes as well as his ears open, he was confident that he could sense danger coming far enough in advance to avoid it.

Reaching the top of a particularly rocky hill, he saw through the clearing in the trees, giving him the first real look at his destination that he'd had so far. He'd seen the occasional cityscape of Kyoto in a few martial arts action movies so, while the angle was different, he immediately began to match what he was seeing now to the scenes in the movies.

 _What the…?_

He'd been prepared to see some differences; if not due to Hollywood tinkering then to the angle he was currently viewing it from, but… not this much. He could see holes in some of the buildings while others had quite obviously been broken in half, with plumes of smoke rising up into the air until the breeze caused them to disperse. He didn't know how long ago the quake must've hit the area but surely it would've been in enough time for the local emergency services to jump into action. He should have been seeing helicopters flying over the city and even from this distance the sound of sirens should be audible.

Yet nothing manmade flew in the air and neither did he hear any sirens, indicating that ambulances or police cars were racing about trying to save lives.

Concerned that the situation might be a little more serious than he'd previously thought, he picked up the pace worried that lives could very well be in the balance.

However he was in such a rush that he didn't mind his footing as well as he should've, causing his right foot to slip on some branches that'd fallen to ground. Not being prepared he could not stop himself from tumbling down the side of the embankment in front of him, rocks as well as branches pricking his back with their sharpness. By the time he reached the bottom he was pretty sure some of the scrapes he'd accrued were bleeding but not enough to make him think he'd need bandages. Wincing with the little bit of pain, he made a mental note to be more careful from there on out since he had no desire to fall off a cliff or onto some sharp broken branches, getting himself impaled in the process.

"Rrrrr…"

A sound that most definitely wasn't human reached his ears and, from what he could tell, it wasn't as far away as he would've preferred it to be. Turning his head towards the source, he prayed that he'd just stumbled upon wild dog's lair and that a little growling of his own would scare it off but sadly he wasn't so fortunate. Instead of a wild dog being the source of the primal noise, he was greeted with the sight of what had to be the BIGGEST black bear on record. Getting up onto its four paws it must've been over five feet in height and its claws looked like they belonged to the comic book character Wolverine. The bone claws were certainly longer than any he'd seen on a bear, either on TV or in the movies, but he could not doubt what his sense of sight was telling him. As it turned his eyes towards him he tried to remember anything and everything he'd ever heard about the right way to survive an encounter with a bear.

Most of the tactics he'd heard focused on either playing dead until the bear lost interest or to take off articles of clothing and drop them on the ground in order to provoke their desire to smell things, since it'd buy time for you to get away. He'd also heard that fighting back with kicks and swats were known to be effective but he didn't think he had the courage to get that close to something as big as the bear was.

Deciding that escape was the best option he took off his Hawaiian shirt he dropped it on the ground before backing slowly away from the bear that seemed content to just look at him for the time being. Taking off his T-shirt next he threw it in the opposite direction he planned on going on, hoping that he if managed to direct the animal's line of sight elsewhere he could make a break for it losing it to the trees before it could follow. Backing away little by little, he watched as the big bear did what he hoped and plodded over to his Hawaiian shirt, sniffing it once it arrived. Naked from the chest up he waited for the bear to go over to his T-shirt and could be sure that it was looking away from him so he could make his getaway. It seemed to take forever but eventually the beast did what it was supposed to do and, when his courage reached as high as it was likely to get, he bolted back the way he'd come.

 _Here's hoping that that Seijuro guy has a rifle or something!_ he thought as he put his strong legs to good use. _Knowing my luck, the bear's got a stubborn personality to make Willow's resolve face pale in comparison._

Picking a route that would slow him down the least while at the same time get him back to Hiko's house, he did his best to remember the proper way to breath when running. The last thing he needed was to run out of steam sooner rather than later with a mountain of furry muscle coming at him from the rear. It was about a minute into his sprint that he heard the sound of something moving behind him and, when he glanced over his shoulder, he cursed when he saw that it was indeed the bear. He'd been hoping that it'd be so interested in his clothes that, by the time that it clued into the fact that he was gone, that he'd be too far away to be worth pursuing.

Putting a little more speed into his sprint he straightened his path since going to the right or left just allowed the bear a chance to catch up. Hurdling over fallen trees or, when there was room, sliding under them, he did everything he could to get away but his ears told him that the beast was getting closer.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!" he cursed as he ran, wondering what the hell he'd done in a past life to deserve this.

Before long his emotions snapped his resolve to flee since it was looking less and less like he'd manage to get back to Seijuro's shack in time to do anything more than show the old man what it looks like to get mauled to death by a bear. He might want to live but he'd be damned if he dragged anyone else down with him just on the off chance that it'd save his own skin. Looking ahead he spotted a branch thick enough that it might do some damage so, when he passed it, he scooped it up before turning to face the bear. He had no idea how far he'd get with this dumbass idea but he hoped that at the very least that he'd give the hairball one helluva scar so people would know it'd been in a fight with a badass.

The bear slowed as it realized that he wasn't going to be running any further but the question of what it intended to do now that it'd caught up with him was unanswered. Had it chased him merely because he ran or did it see him as something delicious looking enough to pursue?

The bear roared at him before rising up on its hind legs, giving him his answer.

"You want some?! COME GET SOME!" he yelled back, bringing his improvised weapon up, determined to get at least one good swing in before he died.

With its massive right paw it swung at him but, thanks to his time fighting vampires he was no stranger to being up against people with superhuman speed. He managed to duck under the swing and immediately swung the branch in his hands to take advantage of the opening presented to him. Unfortunately it'd been a spur of the moment decision and less than half of his usual speed and strength were put into the blow, so while it succeeded in making contact he doubted the hairball had felt much. Seeing the paw coming back his way he hopped back a couple of feet in order to evade it but had only a moment's pause before the left paw was sent, causing him to roll under it.

This fortunately put him to the side of the bear and, unlike before, he was more ready to make a move; he charged forward and, with a homerun swing, slammed the tree branch into the side of the bear. This actually caused the beast to take a few steps to the side but he was pretty sure that it was more due to surprise than any actual damage he'd managed to inflict. Watching it go back down to all fours so it could turn more fully to face him he decided to go for a twofer and charged forward to nail a headshot, but sadly Lady Luck wound up getting insulted that he was getting greedy.

Just as he got to within swing range of the bear it lashed out with its paw faster than before, barely giving him any time to bring up the tree branch to try and block the blow.

As it was the tree branch was probably the one thing that saved his life, even though he couldn't think the thought, seeing as he was flying through the air shaken up both mentally as well as physically. Even the times he'd been tagged by vamps didn't compare to being hit by the bear and, when he hit the ground, he could immediately tell that if his right arm wasn't cleanly broken, it was definitely cracked. Still he supposed he should count his blessings since he'd heard of some cases where people had been killed with a single blow by a bear.

Pushing himself off the ground, he looked back the way he came and was dismayed at the sight of his improvised weapon broken beyond repair. Still, considering the fact that it could've been worse, he counted his blessings. Seeing the bear lumber towards him to finish the job, he worked to get back to his feet in order to give running another try. With only one arm to work with there was no chance of him being able to swing anything hard enough to do the furball any damage. Sure, he could try throwing things but there was a reason he sucked at dodge ball during gym and it wasn't just the dodging part.

Sadly as he put his left foot down a spike of pain arced up the leg, informing him that somehow during his tumble he'd also injured his leg, making running impossible. Speed walking? Maybe. Running? NOT a chance in HELL!

 _Guess this is where I cash my chips in,_ he thought with sad acceptance. _Hopefully nobody ever finds out about this, 'cause not only would it devastate Buffy and Willow but it'd be embarrassing to be known as the guy who died a virgin._

Turning to face the approaching bear fully, he looked it right in the eyes, determined not to show fear, not to turn into a whiny bitch in his last moments, so he could at least say he died like a man. The bear seemed to take that as a challenge and, once it was two or so feet in front of him, it rose up on its hind legs once more, determined to look as ferocious and terrifying as possible.

"I hope I give you a stomach ache that'll stick around ALL WEEK!" he growled at the bear, not backing down even though a part of him wanted to.

With that the bear gave one final roar before raising its massive paw to strike him…

"Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū: Ryūtsuisen!" a voice declared before, in the blink of an eye, the bear went from being whole to being half the beast it used to be.

From its right shoulder all the way to the inside of its right leg the flesh parted, causing the two halves to fall apart even as the bear's blood sprayed about, sprinkling it on everything nearby. His time assisting with the Slayage had pretty much desensitized him to getting blood on himself and, to be honest, bear blood wasn't as bad as some of the demon gunk he'd had trouble washing off. As for the bisected bear he'd seen demon guts, so while a little worse than the frog in biology class, as long as he didn't have to search for something in it he was fine.

Looking behind the dead bear, he was a little surprised and a lot grateful to see Seijuro standing there with what looked like a katana concealed inside a wooden sheath. Indeed, if it'd been sheathed, he probably would've mistaken it for a walking stick or one of those wooden practice swords Giles had Buffy use from time to time.

"Well, I don't know whether to compliment you or criticize the bear," Seijuro said as he flicked his sword to get rid of most of the blood before sliding the katana back into its sheath. "Still, you're alive and in one piece, so I suppose that's something. Now let's get you back to my place so I can tend to your wounds."

 _Guess the guy's not too bad,_ he thought as Hiko got under his good arm in order to help him walk. _Just has some rough edges._

"Thanks," he said, thinking it was the least he could do.

"Don't. If you died out here your corpse would attract predators and scavengers, making problems for me," Seijuro said dismissively at the idea of him doing a good deed. "It'd stink up the area, too."

THAT comment had him rescinding the 'not too bad' compliment and replacing it with 'tolerable jackass', but hopefully he wouldn't have to put up with it for too long. Just long enough to heal up and then he could make another go for Kyoto.

He was still puzzled by the damage done to the buildings and the lack of search and rescue aircraft that should've been buzzing all over the city.

What could've happened?

 _ **Hiko's POV**_

 _He's not human. Not anymore,_ he thought as he watched the boy eat his evening meal.

He'd suspected that something was up when Janus' scroll had implied that Harris would be suitable for being instructed in the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū style of kenjutsu. While the boy certainly appeared to be stronger in appearance than Kenshin ever had, there had still been some doubt as to whether or not he'd be able to safely use it. So when the young man had insisted on making it to civilization he'd decided to take it as an opportunity to see what he had to work with. Unlike the boy he knew that this would not be a peaceful stroll through the woods, not after the dark ki had passed through, so he'd followed at a distance to see what happened.

It'd been uneventful right up to the point where the young man had gotten his first clear view of Kyoto, something he'd managed during the lad's initial unconsciousness upon arrival, and from there it got exciting in a hurry. The bear that Xander had stumbled upon was not an ordinary bear since just about everything about it was almost double what he'd seen in bears before the dark ki changed everything. Like your typical city kid Harris had tried to distract the bear with his clothes but little did the boy realize that the sound of running prey was more interesting than smelly shirts.

Still, it'd allowed him to see what Harris had in terms of stamina and leg strength.

What he'd seen hadn't been so good that he'd let the boy off easy with his body conditioning but at least it meant that it'd be shorter than it otherwise would have been.

When the boy had finally gotten tired of running, a smart move since wasting all your energy would've left him vulnerable, he'd gotten a chance to see Harris' fighting potential. He'd seen signs that the young man had experience fighting opponents that were faster than he was in how he dodged the bear's swipes. There'd also been a measure of strategy to attack immediately after a swipe went by but there'd also been large signs of inexperience, leading him to believe that the boy had been backup more than the lead fighter. When Harris had barely gotten his weapon up in time to take the brunt of the bear's final strike, he'd known that it was time to step in before something permanent happened.

Still, based on what he'd seen and what his examination of the wounds had revealed, he could safely say that Alexander Harris was not a human being, assuming he'd ever been one to begin with. The speed, the reflexes, the strength and the fact that a blow that should've killed Harris had only resulted in a minor crack in his right humerus implied above human durability. There were no obvious physical signs of nonhuman qualities that he'd been able to see but, assuming that they'd been artificially inserted, it was possible that they'd develop more over time.

Or develop all at once if the young man was put into a life threatening situation at some point in the future.

"Your arm will probably take the better part of three weeks to heal but luckily you just sprained your leg and that'll heal up sooner," he said as he began to peck at his meal with his fork. "Do you still want to try for Kyoto?"

"Not without a real weapon or you as an escort," Alexander replied with a shake of his head. "If there're more of those bears out there, I'd have to have a death wish to go anywhere without one or the other."

 _Capable of learning from his mistakes. Good,_ he thought as he swallowed another mouthful of food. "Then we'll set out tomorrow. I've been meaning to make a supply run and now's as good a time as ever."

The truth of the matter was that, like Alexander, he was curious about the state of the city after the alterations the planet had undergone. His radio, the one connection he had to the rest of the world, had remained intact after the ki wave hit but it hadn't picked up anything but static. That was odd because, while not the most powerful radio, it'd been good enough to pick up most of the local radio stations with enough clarity for him to listen to. Even if the civilian run stations had been rendered unable to broadcast, Japan's emergency services would've used radio transmissions to inform the populace of places of safety as well as where emergency supplies could be found. Either emergency services hadn't yet gotten to the city, unlikely given its importance and population, or something had made all radio communication impossible.

As much as he preferred to avoid the troubles of the world, since they never seemed to get any fewer no matter what you did, he didn't like the idea of being blindsided either. Problems in the city tended to spill over into the countryside either because innocents were fleeing trouble or because trouble got greedy enough to look for new prey. He wanted to learn more before he decided if it'd be smarter to relocate to someplace further away from Kyoto or, if it'd be okay, to stay put. Plus he imagined that seeing the city would help convince the boy of Janus' story, making it that much easier to begin the young man's instruction once his injuries healed.

"Why do you live out here anyway?" Alexander asked with innocent curiosity. "I mean, sure, the country air is fresh and there's probably enough game in the woods to keep you fed but…"

Apparently the boy liked asking the personal questions like most would ask about the weather.

"I'm under no obligation to tell you anything about my past but suffice it to say I got tired of seeing mankind repeat the same mistakes over and over again," he replied, not seeing the point of going into details. "I tried to change things when I was younger but the mistakes just kept on happening. So I decided to find someplace where I wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. If I'd known of an isolated island that wasn't inhabited, I would've gone there."

"A bit pessimistic but I guess that makes sense," Alexander said with a shrug but a hint of opposition dusting the top of each word.

"You disagree?" he asked, wondering if all teenagers were as foolish as Kenshin had been back during the Bakumatsu.

"I just think that you're selling people short. Sure, some things take longer to learn than most but it can be done. I mean, we went from living in caves and wearing animal skin underwear to huge cities and putting people on the moon," Alexander replied casually as he finished his meal. "I mean, no one'll see the changes in their lifetimes but that doesn't mean they won't happen. Too many people want to see everything fixed while they're still alive. Some things take time to happen. Lifetimes even."

 _An odd contradiction between idealist and realist. Interesting,_ he thought without giving away what he was thinking.

At the same time there was logic to the young man's thinking that he could appreciate. It was true that most people weren't willing to just be another step in the process of societal or political change. They had to be the one responsible for it all, or at least get some time to bask in the glory of their great triumph. While he was still skeptical about whether or not the human race would ever outgrow its lesser tendencies, he'd seen stranger things happen, so it wasn't completely impossible. Nevertheless, even with the extended lifespan Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū gave its users, he was sure he wouldn't live long enough to see himself proven wrong. If he waited for old age to do him in he probably had another fifty years left in him but that wasn't how he preferred to leave this world. If it hadn't been for his former idiot student's refusal to take a life, it would've ended decades ago after Kenshin successfully executed the Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki.

Now… assuming Alexander agreed to be taught… now he had a chance to die as a master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū should.

He hoped that it would happen that way rather than lose himself day by day.

So long as he didn't let the fool run off to get traumatized into using only nonviolent means and he made it clear that it was the end he wanted, he felt the boy should comply.

"Perhaps. Most, though, don't have the strength of spirit to experience all the troubles firsthand and be content with 'one day' it all being over," he said as he began to pick up the empty dishes. "For most the pain becomes so great that they are pushed to make it happen sooner rather than later."

"Then it's up to the people who do have the strength to keep the other ones from doing anything stupid," Harris said, leaning back with a wince with the movement of his injured arm.

"And you think you know what's stupid?" he asked, believing that 'stupid' was relative to the point of view of each person.

"I think there're some definitions of stupid that everyone can agree on," Harris replied, looking quite certain of his words. "Letting yourself get so hot under the collar that you do stuff without realizing that you're hurting innocent people is pretty stupid. Putting your goal above the people it was supposed to help is stupid. It's one thing if they all give you permission beforehand but just doing it without talking it over with anyone is wrong."

"So you think getting permission makes it okay for innocent people to die as a result of your actions?" he asked, doing nothing to convey how important the answer would be.

"No… but I think that there're times when there'll be no other way. If all the bad guys have to do to keep you from changing things is put a blade to the throat of innocent people, then things'd never get better," Alexander replied, looking like he was thinking it through. "Only thing you can do is make it so that, after you get to where you need to go, you make sure to take responsibility for the bad stuff as well as the good."

"A good answer. Definitely better than most people looking to change the world," he said, mentally giving the kid a partial passing grade.

Unlike most people who thought that the ends would justify whatever means they used no matter what they were, the young man in front of him knew that the end goal meant little to those caught up in the middle of the means. Indeed, those who strove to save the world but were blind to the innocents caught up in process of doing were no better than those they sought to dethrone.

However the only thing better than taking responsibility for the people you hurt during your mission was not hurting anyone in the first place.

If you couldn't come up with a plan that prevented innocents from being hurt in the first place then you needed to wait for a better opportunity later when more favorable circumstances appeared.

It was an interesting beginning but he would need to know more about Alexander before he could truly accept him as an apprentice and determine how to get the best results.

"What is your hometown like, Alexander?" he asked, figuring it was a neutral enough question to begin with.

He would get to the more personal ones when he felt that there was a respectable chance for it to be answered.

They had the time after all.

 _ **A Couple of Days Later**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _There's something seriously off about this katana,_ he thought as he walked alongside Hiko while they made their way towards Kyoto. _I just wish I knew what it was._

It'd been almost two hours ago that they'd left Seijuro's house and the sword he'd been told to grab was still bothering him. It certainly looked pretty solid, like some of those showpieces he'd seen online, but from the second he'd picked it up he'd been absolutely certain that there was something different about it. He'd pulled the blade from the sheath exactly once to inspect the blade and found it to be rather beautiful as far as sharp blades went. After Hiko had his own katana beneath his belt they'd set out for Kyoto and, thankfully thus far, hadn't run into anything dangerous. No bears and no other predators had crossed their path, making it better than his first attempt to get to Kyoto but he wouldn't feel safe until they actually entered the city. Sure, with Hiko by his side most things with teeth wouldn't last very long but, if enough of them showed up, he'd be forced to step up to bat.

His arm was still splinted and in an improvised sling, so even with the katana he now had he'd only be able to put about half the potential power of it to good use. He remembered Giles criticizing Buffy the few times she'd tried to use moves she'd seen in a movie with a real sword during training, so he didn't think he'd be able to do very well with just one arm if something dangerous showed up. It'd probably wind up only managing surface cuts at best, or maybe impalements if he managed to thrust forward with the tip.

Still, it was better than nothing.

It was a little while later that they finally exited the forest and set foot on developed land just on the outskirts of Kyoto. However what he saw doubled the shock he'd originally felt when he'd gotten a look at the city skyline a couple of days ago. Before he'd only seen the buildings from a distance so all that'd been visible had been the smoke and the big damage done to the skyscrapers. Now that he was closer he could see that the damage was much worse and he could see that some of the buildings had actually toppled over. It was destruction that he hadn't seen before outside of the world of television or movies. The smoke that he'd seen days earlier had thinned out somewhat but there was still quite a bit drifting up into the air, indicating that the fires hadn't been put out.

"It doesn't make any sense," he said out loud, as if his words would banish the sight before him. "With this level of damage in a place like Kyoto there should be choppers and sirens and fire trucks all over the place."

"The only two possibilities are either they're not here because something is preventing them from coming…" Hiko said as he looked about on his own, "…or they've chosen not to come at all."

"That's ridiculous!" he exclaimed at the very idea of the latter being the truth. "It's their job to help people! To save people! If they had two good legs and could carry what they needed, they should be here!"

He knew that when it came to Sunnydale PD you couldn't count on them to catch anything more than a cold but he refused to believe that the emergency services of a city known throughout the world would cast aside their purpose in the face of such dire need. So of Hiko's two choices he was left with only one option: something was keeping emergency services from entering as well as moving about the city. That was odd because, while it would've been a problem for land vehicles, it should've been possible to airlift people into the area via helicopter. Indeed, if the fires were fierce there had to be airplanes that could drop water onto them.

However that led to the question of what precisely was keeping the emergency services and, outside of some sort of sorcery, he couldn't come up with a plausible possibility.

"Let's go," he said as he began walking briskly towards Kyoto. "The sooner we get into the city, the sooner we can look for clues and figure out what the hell is going on!"

The brisk walk soon became a run as his imagination produced one bad possibility after another and even Hiko's yells to slow down didn't have much weight with him. If it was true that emergency services had been unable to enter the city in many days, then many lives could very well depend on him and Hiko getting in there as soon as possible. He didn't know how much use he'd be since he only knew the basics of first aid and had one useless arm for the next few weeks but he'd do all he could.

He'd answer the call for help unlike the people back in Sunnydale, who ignored the abuse Tony had regularly thrown at him and his mother.

He would give others hope unlike the police, who regularly proved their cowardice and incompetence.

Almost half an hour later he spotted his first sign of people in the form of a car that looked like it'd gone off the street before puttering to a stop. Worried that someone might've been hurt he picked up the pace, soon arriving at the side of the vehicle to see that it didn't look like it'd hit anything or been hit with enough force to damage the exterior. Seeing that someone was in the driver's seat, he moved towards the door to see if they were still alive or if he'd arrived too late to do anything.

What he saw went above and beyond what he'd been expecting and would without a doubt add a new element to his nightmares.

The person was without a doubt dead but it was the way the man had died that had him taking steps backwards in shock. The man's face was almost melted clean off and, judging by the mess of bodily fluids staining the front of the guy's shirt, the flesh hadn't fallen into such a state through natural means. Besides, there was no way that the local authorities would leave a body to decay to this degree on the side of the road. Someone would've seen it or smelled it in mere hours and called it in to the police. However the man died, it must have been quick and recent in order to escape the notice of civilians and the authorities.

"Back away slowly, Alexander," Hiko said, having managed to catch up. "Cover your mouth and do not exert yourself."

Following the man's orders to the letter he watched as his bodyguard slash guide approached the vehicle, his own mouth covered but with eyes that were scrutinizing every detail.

"This man did not die of natural means, nor was it caused by some device implanted in the vehicle," Hiko said upon finishing his examination. "It was in the air as he drove this way with the window down."

"How do you know that?" he asked with a voice muffled by his shirt.

"For the man's face to have melted to such a degree whatever was used would have to possess strong corrosive properties. If it had been released into the interior of the vehicle via some device, signs around the point of ejection would be readily visible," Hiko replied, turning to face him. "Either around the vents in the interior or an object on one of the seats. I see no sign of that but rather chaotic signs of corrosion over the entire interior. Given that the worst of the corrosion appears to have been done to the man, he was closest to the source: the window."

But if it had come in through the window in the air then there was no way it could've been precise to kill just the man. The ones responsible would've had to blanket the area with the stuff and maintain high dispersal in order to ensure lethal exposure. Looking about the area, he couldn't see signs of corrosion but then again he didn't know what this place looked like before the dangerous compound hit it so there could be signs all over the place.

"Who'd want this guy killed so bad to use this kind of stuff?" he asked even as a small voice inside of him knew it wasn't that simple.

"No. If this man had been the only target there were far simpler ways to kill him, even if they wanted to make a graphic example," Hiko said with a shake of his head. "No, this man died as collateral damage, as did a great many others I suspect. Countless others."

Did he mean…?

Whirling towards the city of Kyoto, a single possibility shook his mind like a miniature big bang: this could have been an attack on the entire city of Kyoto!

At the thought of the sheer number of people who could now be dead like the man in the car he could not keep himself standing and dropped to his knees, using his one free arm to brace himself against the ground. Unable to stop he tossed his cookies all over the payment as a result of the overpowering nausea he felt at the image of an entire city being dead. Who could've done this? WHY? Was this why no search and rescue people were in the city? Because it was still contaminated by whatever had wiped out the population?

Was he going to die now alongside Hiko?

"Don't worry about dying. If the weapon responsible for this was designed to become harmless after so many days it should mean we're safe. If the weapon wasn't meant to become harmless soon after then we would've felt its effects by now," Hiko said, bringing his hand away from his mouth. "The man in the car was affected so swiftly that he couldn't drive someplace to get help or even pull over to the side of the road. If the weapon responsible was still potent enough to hurt us, we would know."

The more he thought about it, the more the old man's words made sense. As the fear of death left him he rose back to his feet, wiping the leftover vomit from his mouth.

"So what do we do now?" he asked at a loss as to whether or not to continue to the city. "If Kyoto's really been turned into a mass grave 'cause of some gas weapon, then there's no point in going there. Even if the gas isn't strong enough to kill us, most of the food's probably gone bad."

"No. Food and supplies commonly stored in nuclear bomb shelters should still be good," Hiko said as he began to walk towards Kyoto. "Some of the medicines might also be salvageable. We'll need all of it if we're planning on surviving long term."

"But won't we get in trouble for robbing places?" he asked with a bit of concern. "Even if the people are dead, there's still security cameras."

"I wouldn't worry. If the state of Japan is as serious as I believe it to be, the authorities have bigger fish to fry than a pair of thieves," Hiko replied without breaking stride or looking over his shoulder.

' _The state of Japan'? He can't possibly mean…!_ he thought before he clamped down on the thought, tied it up in chains and threw it in the darkest pit of his mind. _NO! If I don't think about it then it's not true!_

Deciding that following Hiko and focusing his mind on scavenging supplies was an ideal distraction, he ran after the old man, hoping upon hope that they didn't come across too many dead bodies. He might not be as squeamish about them as some people were, that didn't mean he wanted to spend any more time with them than he absolutely had to. Fortunately, even if the two of them packed as much as they could carry, it wouldn't take them too long to do and, since he hadn't seen a dirt road leading to Hiko's hut, they wouldn't be able to use a car. If he was lucky they'd only make one trip and then it'd be a while before they'd need to go back.

 _I won't be able to leave Japan after an attack like this,_ he thought, forced to accept that his travel plans would have to be put on hold. _Even if I managed to get ahold of Giles for some help, if the airports are locked down then I'm not going anywhere._

At the moment he had two choices: either he could stick with Hiko and wait for news about when normal air travel being restored came to him or he could leave Kyoto for another city for news. Once he had more information he could plan his departure from Japan, hopefully getting back to Sunnydale sooner rather than later.

Until the Scooby gang was reunited, he could not be the carefree slacker he usually chose to be.

Now was the time for the serious Xander to step into the spotlight.

 _ **Kyoto**_

 _ **Hiko's POV**_

 _He's in denial,_ he thought as he walked down the devastated city street. _The truth is so horrible he prefers to believe that all this death is isolated to just Kyoto._

Sooner or later he would have to face the truth but forcing Harris to do so now would only drive a wedge between the two of them since the boy's denial would be protected since it was so fresh. Given enough time to process everything that he'd seen, Alexander might be more approachable with the truth and then he could make his formal offer of training. Based on everything he'd seen so far, Japan's population had likely been decimated by the changing of the world, if not by whatever had killed the driver of the vehicle then by the earthquake that he suspected had hit the world as a whole. If there were any survivors they'd be traumatized, desperate and, for a despicable few, interested in taking advantage of the opportunity chaos produces.

He'd seen it happen many times over the years.

Whenever people lost faith in their government's ability to protect them they often threw their lot with the first person who seemed capable of delivering what they wanted. Even if the person was despicable and asked a terrible price for the aid provided, people would still pay it, believing that they had no other choice if they wanted to live. Gangs of bandits would form and if any of the Yakuza bosses survived the calamity, they would be quick to use what manpower they had to expand both their territory as well their assets.

Alexander, as the boy was now, would last at best a month with such amoral men roaming the country conquering territory and killing all opposition.

Only once the young man had been trained in Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū would he be strong and skilled enough that he would not need to worry about such lowlifes.

As he hopped over the hoods of two cars that'd collided head on with each other he heard a sound that had not been caused by an inanimate object. There was no wind to cause something to sway and anything that could have fallen since the merger of worlds would have done so long ago. For there to be movement now could only mean that something alive was close by and, since the evidence presented thus far indicated that it was likely not human, that meant an animal. While it was possible that the cause of the noise was something harmless, he could not be certain of that without seeing what it was. If the bear was any indicator animals of all sorts would be decidedly larger than they were before the world had changed and possibly have acquired new attributes.

"Stay here and keep your guard up," he ordered as he used his senses to locate the thing that'd caused the noise. "I'm going to check something out."

"Sure. Fine," Alexander said, sounding like being left with the disfigured dead denizens of downtown Kyoto was not something he'd enjoy. "Gotcha."

He'd have to teach the boy to be better at concealing his emotions.

In any confrontation, figuring out your opponent's intentions and emotional state was vital for predicting what they'd do next so that a counter strategy could be formulated. By concealing ones emotions and, in cases of swordsmen, their warrior spirit, they could make it harder for others to figure out what they'd do next. That mystery, that moment of confusion that came when someone did something you couldn't perceive the goal of, could give someone all the time they needed to end a confrontation as soon as it began. Alexander as he was now would be all too easy to predict and therefore trick into an unfavorable situation.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts he refocused his efforts and soon sensed the ki of a living thing close to where he'd heard the sound. Using the stealth that'd become second nature to him he crept towards the potential threat, being careful to keep his footfalls silent while disturbing nothing that might provoke his target. A minute later he determined that the source of the noise was hiding behind what looked to be a cashier's counter so he debated what to do next. An idea came to him and so he picked up a napkin holder and threw it at the side of the counter, knowing that this would likely cause the animal to panic. To his eyes there were only two ways out from behind the counter, the left or the right, both of which would allow him to see what it was. With a bang the holder hit and, just as he'd predicted, the animal behind the counter bolted, but when he got his first clear look he was surprised enough to let it show on his face.

It was NOT an animal or at least not entirely.

Running to cover behind a soda machine was a young girl, about eight years old from what he'd seen, but the one thing that differentiated her from girls he'd seen before was the fact that she had weasel ears poking out of her hair. To add to the oddness he could even see a tail poking out from the bottom of her skirt and it was moving in such a manner that it could only be alive.

 _A youkai?_ he thought his mind drew the logical conclusion, _No. Ever since humans got so abundant the tribes have kept to the wild and any who venture into human territory have mastered illusionary magic in order to appear human._

Besides that, due to the separation between youkai and humans, the former getting current clothing was almost impossible. Most times they got whatever clothing they needed from thrift stores where no one would pay that much attention to them. Going to malls or busy department stores would've made it hard to maintain the spell that'd allow them to blend in.

His mind ran through many possible explanations, utilized every piece of evidence he had since the calamity, and in the end he could only reach one possibility that came closest to matching all the facts.

Wherever the planet Earth had been taken and however it had been changed had resulted in at least some of the populace undergoing physical as well as possibly behavioral alterations. He didn't know whether or not being given the characteristics of a weasel was unique to this girl or if everyone they found alive would have a new set of ears. Whatever the case, it calmed his heart to know that some civilians had survived. Now, though, it was best to calm the girl he'd startled and perhaps find out if she knew of anyone else that might still be alive.

"I am sorry if I startled you little one," he said as he got down onto one knee to appear smaller. "I didn't know it was you. Are you okay?"

While he hadn't had a lot of practice with children, especially since he'd isolated himself from the rest of the world, there were some things about children that'd never change. One thing was that the best way to calm them down was to use a calm and gentle voice whenever you spoke. Another was to minimize any way you might seem scary or intimidating especially if they were already in a state of agitation. The last thing he knew, however, he didn't have the tools for because if you had a sweet or some other food that children loved you could usually win them over with it.

Looking at the girl, he could tell that he'd managed to get her attention away from her fear somewhat but that was about it. She still hid behind the soda machine and didn't look like she'd even be trying to get a peek at him for a few minutes when her fear had dropped enough to allow it.

 _She's probably been scavenging for food since the calamity hit,_ he thought with a bit of pity. _Since she's alone, though, I can only presume that her parents or any concerned adults for that matter did not survive._

It was somewhat impressive that she'd managed to survive for so long on her own but it was unlikely that she'd be able to keep it up forever. With a sigh he knew that he would have to try and coax her into coming with him and Xander since, even if he tried to leave her behind, the second his potential pupil found out, trust would be a problem.

In any case he was not so heartless, nor so attached to his peaceful isolation that he would leave so young a girl to fend for herself amidst this pile of corpses.

"I know you're afraid, little one. I can't imagine the horrors you've had to endure," he said, keeping his voice soft and gentle. "Know that you do not have to suffer alone. I cannot offer more than a roof over your head and simple meals but surely that is better than what this city has become."

He waited to see how the girl would react and hoped that she accepted the offer. While his home had been originally constructed just to house him as well as his few meager belongings, it could be made to fit three people with a little work. If she turned down his offer he would have to follow her secretly to where she slept so that he could drop off what food or medicine he could every few days.

This turned out to be an unnecessary train of thought as a little over a minute later the girl stood up and tentatively stepped away from the soda machine. Seeing her approach he knew that her courage and perhaps her hope for the future was being kept aloft by a very thin thread and that it would snap if she perceived the slightest threat coming from him. He would have to caution Alexander against treating her harshly for any reason, even if it was by accident. Only when her wounds had healed sufficiently would it be safe to treat her with a measured amount of harshness.

Reaching out with his hand, he offered it to the girl and once she took it he guided her out of the building to where Alexander was waiting for them. It didn't take long for the teenage boy to see the girl and he decided to answer the question that was coming before it could be spoken.

"She is the one that I sensed. She appears to be a survivor of this disaster and has undergone some rather significant changes," he explained as he stopped a safe distance from Alexander so that the girl could evaluate the new person without fear.

"Yeah, I'd say so. So what is she? A demon? A half-breed?" Harris asked without anything except curiosity.

"No. Most of the demons you're familiar with tend to avoid Japan and the youkai native to the country are better at concealing their true natures in human cities," he replied, shaking his head as he voiced his own position. "It is far more likely that whatever did this to the city is responsible for her changes."

"A weapon that kills almost everybody but turns the rest into animal people from some anime? I think you've gone senile, old man," Alexander said with disbelief thick in his voice. "No weapon, biological or chemical, could do that. Magic is also out of the question because anything that could've done all this would've set off five different warning bells with whoever's in charge of fighting the supernatural in Japan. She's probably just a hybrid whose demon blood just kicked in 'cause of the hell she's been through."

 _Still he refuses to accept reality,_ he thought narrowing his eyes in exasperation. _I suppose some might consider it understandable that a person would refuse to accept that the world was no longer how they remembered it. Too bad I'm not one of those people._

"You see the truth before you and yet you refuse to accept it. This is no longer the Earth you remember. It has changed. Changed in more ways than either of us know," he said, deciding to be as blunt as his training methods. "This city, this girl, they are but the first signs of the new world that's been created by the dark ki that swept over the planet. How long do you plan to cling to denial and poorly conceived excuses?"

He watched the emotions play across the young man's face and within the eyes that were the windows to the soul. In reaction to his harsh confrontation he could now see deeper into his future student's soul than when he'd previously looked. As a result he saw something important: Deep within the young man's mind he both knew and accepted the truth but his heart refused to accept it, suppressing the truth with all its power. He'd seen this in the past from those who knew their precious person had gone off into danger but refused to contemplate the likely reason why that person did not return no matter how many days passed. The reason could be that they had unbreakable faith in their precious person or simply because they knew that if they accepted the truth their soul would be plunged into indescribable agony, potentially to the point of self-destruction.

In Alexander's case he suspected that it was the fear that those who were most precious to him were now among the dead. So long as the young man clung to the belief that the horrors were confined to just Japan and would not spread beyond the nation's edge then they were alive and waiting for him. However if he ever accepted the truth that they were no longer of this world, a large part of Alexander's heart would die as well, plunging him into heartbreaking sorrow.

"Until I see proof that even denial can't stand up to," Alexander replied before turning away. "Let's get the supplies we came for and see if anyone else managed to make it through this hell."

He could only sigh with annoyance at the statement that implied that Alexander was even more selfish than his last student.

He was going to have his hands full for the next few years.

 _ **Hiko's Hut**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

It had been a week since their initial trip to Kyoto and in that time they'd made two more until they'd managed to scavenge enough supplies to support five people easily.

In addition to the weasel girl named Hitori that Hiko found they'd encountered two more people on subsequent trips, both of whom had been given attributes of animals. For Kirito, a teenager the same age as him, he'd gotten the ears and tail of a wolf even though Hiko had commented that all wolves native to Japan were extinct. For Minmei, a girl only a little older than Hitori, she'd gotten the ears and the tail of a cat, though he couldn't tell what breed from coloring alone. The last two had been working together to survive Kyoto and had been found living out of a police precinct with the usual assortment of junk food and easily prepared meals scattered about. It'd been a bit dicey convincing them to return to Hiko's home, especially since they'd armed themselves with the police department's arsenal of firearms, but the old man's sword skill quickly cowed them into surrender. Seijuro wasn't really happy with more people living out of his home but he'd managed to convince the man that having more people meant that any work that needed doing would get done quicker.

True, he planned on doing most of the hard work himself, but the little chores would be enough to keep the additional guests out of the 'freeloader' column.

 _Still nothing on the radio,_ he thought as he continued to work on the device, hoping to pick up a signal of some kind. _It's almost been a month since I got here! You'd think that there'd be at least one attempt to investigate Kyoto to see if the biohazard has abated yet!_

His mind came up with a reason why no one had come to Kyoto yet but before it could fully form he squashed it, poured gasoline on it, lit it on fire and then scattered the ashes to the wind. He could feel the part of him that knew the reason trying to get him to listen but he refused to because he knew that if he did everything would change and none of it would be good. That led to pain, agony, grief and sorrow, none of which he wanted any part of.

 _I just need to be patient,_ he thought as he carefully tuned the radio to another frequency bit by bit in the hopes of hearing SOMETHING. _This is probably something they've never seen before so they're just being extra cautious._

He'd give it a month before starting to think about going to one of the other big cities of Japan to find out what was going on and how long it'd be before he could get back to Sunnydale. He'd seen maps in Hiko's house so he'd peruse them later to see which major city was the next closest to them after Tokyo. If it was something that'd take him more than a day to reach he'd pack as much as he could into one of the camping backpacks they'd salvaged and head out at first light.

His arm was almost back to normal, which was a bit surprising considering how badly it'd hurt after the bear had hit him, but he guessed that it'd just felt worse than it'd really been. He was no doctor but he figured that another two weeks and he'd be right as rain and ready to take a trip a bit further abroad than he'd done so far. Sure, it wouldn't be great if he ran into another bear but he was fairly sure that now that he had an actual weapon, the weird katana Hiko had given him, he'd do a better job fighting off big ass animals. After all if he'd landed his one blow with the sword instead of a tree branch he was pretty sure he'd have done some serious damage. A few well-placed hits and either the bear would've run off out of self-preservation or he'd have managed to kill it.

"Fuck it!" he grumbled as he finally gave up trying to find a radio signal connection to civilization.

Crossing his arms over his chest he glared at the instrument that refused to give him any sort of information about what was going on in Japan and when air travel would become available again. He'd already been gone from Sunnydale long enough for something bad to happen and he was sure that his friends were worried sick about him. Willow at the very least would be using up one method of finding him after another and paying little if any heed to the potential risks involved. Hopefully even if he got teleported to Japan Giles still managed to get to a hospital. As long as he was around Willow wouldn't be able to get into any of the trickier mojo books anytime soon.

"No luck with the radio?" Kirito asked from the door to the house.

"Nope. Either something's blocking the signal or we're out of range," he replied, turning away from the radio.

He didn't like what that implied about the state of Japan because, if one of its major cities had been destroyed and every transmitter within twenty-five miles disabled, then this was no one city terrorist strike. This could very well be the beginning of a coup d'état or an invasion by a foreign nation. If that was the case then getting out of Japan would go from buying a simple plane ticket to stowing away on a hostile aircraft, with the latter being decidedly more risky to his life.

 _Maybe I should take Hiko up on his offer of kenjutsu lessons,_ he thought ponderingly as he got out of the chair he'd been sitting on. _Sure, against guns it won't do much good but if the stuff works as good on people as it does on bears, it'll be better than nothing._

Still he'd wait until he got serious proof that the country was heading to war or invasion since, if either happened, it could very well take a few years to escape. Even with soldier boy's echoes bouncing around inside his head he didn't like the odds of him beating someone who had the training firmly ingrained in their brains. He'd need to learn at least some of what Hiko had to teach if he was going to stand a chance or if it turned out to be necessary to learn it all he'd do only as much as was absolutely necessary.

The Scoobies needed him and that meant he had to return to them as swiftly as he could in order to avert potential calamity.

"Do you think what happened in Kyoto is happening everywhere else?" Kirito asked, a bit of fear popping up for a single eye blink.

"Nah! I don't know what's going on but if someone wanted complete annihilation we wouldn't be here to talk about it. If they're looking to conquer the country then it's stupid to destroy every place of value," he replied, heading for the door so he could find Hiko. "I think it's more about fear. If the people behind Kyoto prove they can wipe out an entire city and no one knows how they can do it, they can pretty much demand anything they want."

"What do you think they want?" Kirito asked, sounding like he was more afraid of his preferred scenario than every city suffering the fate of Kyoto.

"Dunno. Without knowing who they are, it could be anything," he replied with a shrugged as he passed the Japanese teenager. "But it's usually a safe bet to pencil in money, power or revenge with anyone willing to wipe out so many people."

Or at least those were the most common motivations as shown in Hollywood's various action movies.

Seeing a look of anger come over Kirito's face, he paused in his departure worried about what might be going on inside the guy's head. None of the survivors that'd come to live with him and Hiko had spoken overly much about their lives before the massacre and out of consideration for them no pressing had been done. However none of them looked like they'd had to suffer through growing up under an asshole like Tony Harris, so he could only presume they'd lived in a happy homes. All that meant, though, was that the pain of loss was that much more savagely unleashed upon their hearts and it'd likely be a while before they felt comfortable opening up to him and Hiko.

 _Still hope it happens, though,_ he thought, walking out into the open. _If I'm gonna be here for a couple years, it'd be nice to have some friends._

Not that any new ones that he made would even come close to the Scoobies but they'd certainly help make things easier until the old gang got back together.

Looking about the house, he could see Hitori and Minmei playing with a ball close by but no sign of the old man.

"You two seen where Hiko went?" he asked even as he continued to try to find Seijuro.

"He said he was going to go hunting for food," Hitori said after she caught the ball.

"Don't see why. We got more than enough good stuff already," Minmei commented, sounding like the sort of person who'd never eaten that wasn't from a supermarket or a restaurant.

"Stuff that's gonna run out sooner or later," he said, pointing out the problem. "Even if we pilfered Kyoto clean of everything edible and safe, it's gonna run out eventually. Learning to live off the land is what's gonna save us in the long run."

Sure, he wasn't quite sure how quickly five people could live off the total amount of food that wouldn't go rotten that could be found in Kyoto but he doubted it'd be more than a year or so.

 _Guess I'll be adding hunting lessons to by kenjutsu training,_ he thought as went over to an open area before drawing his katana from its sheath. _Might as well do a few practice swings until Hiko gets back._

 _ **Later in the Day**_

 _ **Hiko's POV**_

"So what're we doing all the way out here?" Alexander asked as they reached the mouth of the cave that was their destination. "And WHAT is that SMELL?"

"You'll find out inside and the smell is coming from the blood and entrails of the bear I killed. While not perfect, the scent of so powerful a predator will be enough to keep most animals from straying too closely to the cave," he replied, kneeling to inspect the freshness of the barrier he'd erected so long ago. "Hmmmm… I'll need to find another predator soon. The blood's going bad and that'll just drawn in any scavengers in the area."

"So you're hiding something in the cave and using blood and flesh from a badass bear to keep critters away from it," Harris said, summarizing his explanation even further. "What's so important? Your personal stash of Twinkies inside or something?"

"Hmph. Something far more important than snack foods and, in point of fact, it's more yours than mine, Alexander," he replied as he stood up and resumed walking into the cave. "I just thought it'd be best to wait until the matter of supplies was settled before I showed it to you."

In truth that was only part of the reason.

The other half of the reason why he hadn't brought Xander, as he insisted on being called, to the cave before now was because he'd needed time to discern the truth. When the young man had first arrived he had done the natural thing putting both the boy as well as the Kusanagi into his home but, when it came to the egg, he'd chosen a different resting place. He'd known that Janus would not have sent the egg along with the teenager for something as stupid as a meal but rather as something to be hatched. It'd been feasible that the animal within was intended to be a pet or partner for his future student but, without knowing what type of animal was inside, the proper care methods were unknown. Thus whenever he'd been able to slip away from Xander he'd come to this cave to use all his skills of perception to figure out what beast laid this egg as well as what would be born from it.

Last night he'd finally concluded his examination.

He'd been somewhat surprised since so rare of a creature would have been difficult for even a deity of Janus' caliber to acquire. Not only were the adults decidedly dangerous even for one of his prowess, but also even finding one of their lairs was often more a case of sheer luck rather than skill. Still, with the discovery of the breed of animal within the egg, he knew that from now on it had to be Xander who cared for it if everything was to go well.

A minute later they reached the nest of shrubbery, bear fur and an old rug he'd received as a gift. Placed in the midst of this warmth retaining objects was the egg, looking much the same as it had the last time he'd seen it. A short distance away from the egg were the remains of three fires he'd used since the creature within had an affinity for flame and would gain strength from the warmth it specifically generated.

"That is one BIG egg," Xander said with a bit of awe. "Seeing as how we haven't cracked it open to make one helluva omelette, I'm assuming that you're planning on hatching it. What's in it?"

"A dragon."

Three seconds passed.

"WHAT!?" Xander exclaimed incredulity.

"A dragon. More specifically one of the Asian variety instead of the ones used in most European fairy tales," he explained with a bit of disappointment in his future student's reaction. "In appearance they look like a giant snake, with horns sticking out of its head, two sets of legs at the front as well as the back and hair more like a mammal at certain points of their body. Most are connected by the Japanese to water based phenomenon such as rain or rivers but there are some that break that pattern."

"So that's why you're trying to keep it warm? Beasties that deal in water would shrivel up pretty quick if they got too hot," Xander said, recovering from his shock. "So why'd you bring me here?"

"Because you are going to be taking care of it from this day onward," he said, tossing a book at the boy. "It arrived with you when you appeared in front of my home and I have to believe that Janus intended for it to be your responsibility. I only took care of it this long in order to determine what it was."

"B-but… I don't know how to take care of a dragon egg, much less make it hatch!" Xander said even as he caught the book clumsily due to the surprise of the answer given.

"Idiot! That's what the book is for. I might never have actually seen or even cared for a fire dragon before but fortunately my hobby as a potter has led to me meeting several knowledgeable people," he said with annoyance. "One of them gave me a copy of a rare book that he claimed he'd acquired from a group of monks charged with caring for a fire dragon by the four Great Dragon Kings themselves. The man himself was a fool who often bought placebos and fakes but when I brought the book to an expert I learned it was surprisingly factual, possessing none of the traits of a fake. Follow the contents to the letter and you'll manage well enough."

"Well enough for it to hatch and eat me or burn me to a crisp you mean!" Xander said, clearly not loving his new duties.

"Don't be ridiculous! The dragon will be completely helpless for the first few weeks as it learns how to walk and fly. Sure, there might be a few spouts of flame but they'll be more accidents than anything done on purpose," he criticized with a shake of his head at his future student's stupidity.

"Oh! So I'll get burned to death by accident!" Xander exclaimed, flinging his arms out to the side. "That makes me feel SO much better!"

"That is why I want you to care for it from here on out. It'll cause your scent to permeate everything so it'll perceive you as nothing more than a natural part of the cave. Also the odds are high that upon hatching the dragon will recognize you as family and form a bond with you that should keep it from behaving too violently," he said, trying to make the young man see the truth. "Besides, given that Janus had this in his possession, it is likely that it is not your typical dragon, so it could very well be sentient or possess the capacity for sentience. Whether nor not it reaches such a state will be up to you."

Xander looked at the book, then at the egg, as though wondering whether or not it would be smart to take care of the latter with the former. Thanks to all the stories, myths, legends and kami be damned movies about dragons, most of them were seen as engines of destruction that were either to be avoided or slain as a matter of survival. If one actually did the proper research on dragons they would learn that most were either the sort that acted on pure instinct or were as smart, or smarter, than a human being. As such the former were not evil any more than a tiger or a wolf could be considered evil by following their instincts, such as attacking an intruder in their territory. As for the latter, it all depended on their individual personality whether or not they could be considered evil.

Whether the dragon that hatched from the egg would be instinctive in nature or intelligent would only be learned over time.

"Leaving it to fend for itself will probably just cause us more headaches down the road," Xander sighed finally before sitting down and laying against the cave wall. "Guess I got no choice. I'll have to raise it to see us as family or at least as something that's not on the menu."

Watching his future student open the book and begin to read, he took that as an affirmation of the lad's decision. Turning away, he left the cave to return to his home and deal with the other tenants that he'd taken on in accordance to the principles of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū style of kenjutsu. He'd already cleared the immediate area of any animals that could harm them but there was always the chance that something new had crept in since his last patrol.

He'd tested each of them in order to determine whether or not their animal attributes were merely for show. The results he'd gotten were far from conclusive but there did exist signs that their senses had been enhanced beyond what was typical for a human. He would have to honestly test them openly in order to learn more. The prowess one showed when they consciously tried was almost always superior to what was shown when they just reacted to unexpected stimulus. Would Kirito grow to be strong like the wolf youkai he'd encountered during his life? Would Minmei become as agile and as fast as most cats were known to be?

He was not sure.

Still, the principles of his style of kenjutsu demanded that at the very least he made sure that they could survive on their own without him before he embraced solitude once more.

He would pass on that which he was obligated to pass on and then leave to find peace that can only be found by leaving the rest of the world behind.


	3. Training and Changes

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention to change this in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my stories. Therefore I would greatly appreciate it if no legal action was taken against me.

PS-Positive reviews will be appreciated. Positive criticism will be considered but not necessarily acted upon. People looking to bully, bash and otherwise ruin my day simply because they can will be ignored at the very least and review blocked at the very most.

Xander's POV

"Hiko? Could you teach me how to use this sword right?" he asked, feeling a little uncertain about this step.

He was uncertain because the one example he'd seen of it had succeeded in cutting a huge bear completely into two pieces with a single swing. That was something that he'd only come to expect from Buffy, with her superhuman Slayer strength, so to find an old man that could do it meant one of two things. Either it meant that Hiko was more than human or it meant that, despite being human, Seijuro had somehow managed to gain superhuman strength, making him that much more remarkable. As a result, though, he was unsure if he had what it'd take to even come close and, if Hiko sensed this, he might consider it a waste of his time to even give a single lesson.

Nevertheless, if he wanted to make his way through this country and find a way back to Sunnydale, then he needed to become stronger than he was at the moment.

If he was to survive the animals and the opportunists that would seek to prey upon the weak, he needed to become much stronger.

"Oh? What brought this on?" Hiko asked, sounding about interested as someone would be in a new flavor of ice cream. "When I offered to teach you after you awoke you threw my offer back in my face and left."

"Yeah, well, almost getting eaten by a bear and finding out that psychos are wiping out entire cities has me wanting to find new ways to stay alive," he said, quickly moving things along rather than dwell on the past. "Seeing as how you can cut bears in half with one swing, I figured you'd be as good a teacher as any."

"Oh? So I'm just a sensei of opportunity?" Hiko asked, sounding vaguely insulted by the implications.

"More or less," he replied, figuring honesty was better than groveling or buttering up. "Honestly, seeing you cut that bear in half has me wondering if I'd be setting my sights a little too high trying to learn how to do the same. If another sword instructor was close by that'd be easier, I'd go to them since whatever style they taught would be more in my reach. But there isn't and so here we are."

Hiko didn't reply right away but rather just looked at him as though examining every gram of him and it was increasingly wierding him out. He'd never really liked being the center of attention back in Sunnydale because he was aware of most of his flaws and how they made others think of him. By staying in the background, by being supporto-guy, most people overlooked him allowing his flaws to pass by unnoticed and granting him opportunities to contribute to the good fight. By staring at him, Hiko was unknowingly causing him to look within and find ever flaw that would cause others to look down at him for.

He hated the feeling of being looked down upon!

He supposed that it was one of the reasons he'd hooked his wagon to Buffy's since he believed that if he fought by her side against things that'd give most people nightmares he could prove his worth. At the very least he could prove himself superior to Tony Harris, forever shattering the opinion people had of him following in the footsteps of that drunken asshole of a man. Sure, he wasn't off to a great start, what with getting beat up by the vampires or the demons rather than him beating them up, but he figured that that meant he could only get better with every fight. With his friends to watch his back, he'd survive and, by surviving numerous fights against things capable of killing many human beings, he would become stronger himself.

Now, though, circumstances insisted that he get stronger, quicker, than could be done by surviving random battles spread out over a year or two.

"Well, you certainly are a weak and scrawny excuse for man, so you could certainly stand to be trained up some so as not to embarrass the rest of us men. However let me make one thing perfectly clear: if you train with me, you train until I say you've mastered everything," Hiko said with so serious a tone that unconsciously had him taking two steps back. "My last student got so hot under the collar about saving Japan that he left before mastering the style, then had the gall to come back over ten years later begging me to resume his lessons! I won't let things go that way a second time! If you leave before mastering Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, I'll wash my hands of you altogether and won't finish your instruction no matter how hard you beg! Understand!?"

As much as he didn't like being compared to someone else, he had to admit that, if some hotheaded student ran off in the middle of something Hiko considered to be so important, then the old man had good reason to be pissed. Still, if that was the only condition to be met to receive instruction from an excellent swordsman, then there was only one thing to say.

"I understand. I swear to you in the name of my best friend Willow Rosenberg that I will not leave until I have mastered Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū," he said with complete honesty and conviction.

He knew that mastering a style of swordsmanship probably took years but he figured that that was because students mixed normal, everyday living, as well as leisure time in with their training. He believed that if he devoted his every waking moment to training while taking only the bare minimum sleep needed to keep going, he could halve the time needed to master Hiko's style of swordsmanship. It'd probably take a little more time than that for whatever plagued Japan to calm down enough for him to get a plane ticket home, so it'd work out for him time-wise.

"I'll hold you to that promise, boy," Hiko said as he stood up from his pottery oven. "The first thing we need to do is see just how out of shape you are."

"We're starting now?" he asked, a little surprised since he'd figured Hiko would need at least a day to write up a lesson plan. "And I'll have you know I'm in pretty good shape for my age!"

"If being in 'pretty good shape for your age' was all you needed to learn Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, anyone could do it," Hiko chastised with a condescending look on his face. "As for starting right now, why not? It's not like you have anything better to do."

He had to frown a bit since Hiko's tone reminded him a little too much of Snyder and Tony, but he couldn't find any fault with the man's point of view.

"So what's the first exercise test?" he asked as he got himself into the proper mindset.

"The most basic of all exercises: running." Hiko picked up his sword and tucked it beneath the belt around his waist.

He was actually somewhat optimistic about the test thanks to his times helping Buffy on patrol as well as the usual Hellmouth hijinks. Often times the only way to survive was to be able to outrun a demon or if something bad was going down none of them had driver's licenses they had to run to wherever it was happening. As a result, he'd gotten pretty good at running, so he figured this would probably be the one test he'd probably do the best on.

"So where'll I be running to?" he asked, figuring it'd probably be to a specific spot and back.

"Nowhere in particular," Hiko replied with a shrug as he drew his sword. "Pick any direction you like. I'll be right behind you to provide… incentive."

For a moment he wondered what the guy meant with incentive but then a bit of logic hit him that explained it: you don't unsheathe a sword unless you plan on using it. Since he didn't think that Hiko planned on killing him, he figured this would wind up being a variation of cracking the whip method of making sure he kept a specific pace. While a little forceful, he wasn't going to complain since this was what he asked for in requesting training from Hiko.

Taking a moment to glance around, he let instinct pick a direction for him before going into what he felt was a decent enough running pace. It'd just be to warm up and then he'd kicked up a gear or two since he'd need to push his muscles if he wanted to get any sort of results. However, before he even reached the edge of the clearing that surrounded Hiko's home, he felt the displacement of wind and a sound that didn't belong outside of a barbershop. Reaching up to where he'd felt the displacement of air, instead of coming into contact with the familiar tufts of black hair that had been there before he felt nothing. Feeling about in case it'd gotten stick or matted somewhere, he still found nothing so he glanced over his shoulder to ask Hiko what'd happened… only to see the old man finishing a horizontal slash with his sword.

And all the pieces fell into place.

Hiko had swing his sword just barely missing his neck but succeeding in cutting off a bit of his hair.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" he exclaimed even as he picked up the pace a little. "I was running just fine."

"For a civilian, maybe, but if you are to become a Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū master you will need to surpass what a civilian is capable of." Hiko brought his arm back in preparation for another swing of the sword. "Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū masters are famous for possessing god-like speed, speed that renders them impossible for ordinary people to see."

God-like speed? Invisible to the naked eye?

Even Buffy, with her Slayer powers, couldn't move that fast. Sure, she'd moved swiftly but it'd been more of a blur than going completely invisible. Personally he didn't think it was possible for a human being to exceed the physical capabilities of a Slayer but, if he could somehow reach a level from which he could better protect those he cared deeply for, that would be enough.

With that in mind he increased the effort he put into his running in the effort to reach a speed that would meet with the old man's approval.

"You call that running?" Hiko asked from behind him before another displacement of air came, along with new rear ventilation for his shirt. "I've seen turtles who can move faster!"

Again he increased his speed, arriving a few steps shy of what he considered to be his all out running speed and hoping this would be a good enough pace for his new teacher.

When another near miss didn't come his way he presumed that this meant he'd reached a speed that satisfied Seijuro.

He didn't know how long he'd be able to keep the pace up this high but he would do all he could to meet the challenge set before him.

He wouldn't give up at the first sign of difficulty, not like Tony.

Just like fighting side by side with Buffy, he would use this as a means by which he could prove to everyone that he was nothing like that drunk.

Seijuro Hiko's POV

"Okay… I get the… unh… pull ups… and the… unh… handstand pushups…" Alexander grunted as he continued with his exercise, "…but is it really… necessary… unh… to add… weights… unh… this early?"

Looking at the young man as he continued doing the stomach crunches in the sets and reps he'd laid out at the beginning of the exercise, he examined every inch for mistakes. In order for the young man to get the most out of his body training, there couldn't be any mistakes or else the payoff would be reduced. The cardio training he'd started the boy on two weeks ago was coming along well enough and he'd made sure to divide it between running as well as swimming in a nearby lake. The teenager always wound up so tired that it took almost an hour to recover enough to hobble back to the house but the fact that he managed to accomplish the desired distance close to the desired time was good. He would still push the young man until he determined where Harris' true physical limits were because only then could he begin showing his student how to surpass them.

"It's a teacher's job to put pressure on their students so that they can be transformed from coal into diamonds," he replied from his chair where he carefully tended to his newest pottery creation. "If I had you do crunches the easy way, it'd take forever for you to get in respectable shape. This'll speed things up quite a bit."

"And if… I wind up… unh… getting hurt doing... it this way?" Alexander asked with what air he had between crunches.

"You're young. You'll heal. Then we'll make up for lost time by doubling the workload," he replied, unconcerned about possibly injuring his student by pushing him too hard.

"And if… I don't… unh… heal?" Alexander asked, sounding like he was worried about that possibility.

"Then you'll have proven that you're not suitable to learn Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū and the lessons will stop there," he replied honestly since there'd be little point in continuing training if the lad's body wasn't up to it.

"So nice… to have a… unh... caring teacher… like you!" Alexander griped even as he continued to do the crunches.

"Isn't it, though? I'm just overflowing with compassion," he replied with a smile on his face that implied sarcasm.

The truth though was that Alexander was progressing through his training at an acceptable rate of speed but, if he actually came out to the lad saying things like that, it'd only hinder his progress. Those who received praise often let it go to their head, causing them to pursue their training with less vigor, thinking that they'd accomplished enough to take a break. It was an especially dangerous thing to do when it came to Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū since the results could cause the undisciplined mind to think of such words as 'invincible'. When that happened there was a risk that they would take on a challenge that exceeded their current abilities and he would be a poor teacher indeed to let that happen. So instead he would continue to belittle and dismiss the progress Alexander made, giving only what scarce praise was necessary when the lad encountered a breaking point.

As it was, though, it'd likely be a few months of body training before his student would be physically advanced enough to actually begin practicing the basics of kenjutsu. His entire lesson plan was focused on the premise that Alexander knew next to nothing about how to use a sword beyond what he'd seen in the entertainment business. As such the basics of kenjutsu needed to be learned before moving on to the techniques that belonged solely to the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū style of swordsmanship.

Before even that Alexander's body had to be made strong enough so that he would not injure himself attempting to perform the techniques.

"Watch yourself! You're slacking off!" he reprimanded as he saw the boy not going as far as he should with his crunches. "All the way up, all the way back and don't flop like a fish out of water!"

"Aye, aye captain!" Alexander declared with a bit of snark in his tone.

"What was that? You want me to double the weights?" he said as he stood up and began moving towards where the extra weights rested. "Why certainly! Anything for my newest student!"

"WAIT!" Alexander exclaimed, almost breaking his stride before realizing that that would be a bad idea. "No… need… for that… unh… this is… enough!"

He kept his grin internal as his move to crush his student's complaints proved to be successful.

It wouldn't do for the young man to disrespect his teacher since it might lead to ignoring important lessons or nuggets of wisdom. For any warrior, no matter what their chosen weapon might be, it was a matter of fact that all it took was one forgotten fact or detail to lead to defeat. It would not do for a future master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū to suffer defeat due to carelessness.

Looking away for a moment to see how the other children were doing, he was glad to see that they were applying themselves to their chores. He hadn't given them anything too hard to do but they would definitely earn their keep and keep them from developing any freeloader traits. While there were kind souls out there that would never turn their backs on anyone, even freeloaders, it was inevitable that such lazy people would one day encounter someone who would take offense to their habits. That or they'd run out of people willing to give them something for nothing, leaving them without the means to take care of themselves.

Discipline and hard work were needed to survive in any era.

Those without either did not get very far in life.

 _At the very least they'll know how to best use the various tools I've picked up over the years,_ he thought as he turned back to his student. _Most of them probably belong in a museum but if what I suspect is true, then they'll be all the children have._

Aside from the countless deaths there was the damage to the various buildings in Kyoto both on the inside as well as the outside to take into account. If everyone in the city either died or was transformed by the calamity, that still wouldn't account for the amount of damage done to the city. Some of it might've happened due to the earthquake that changed the landscape of the area but it wouldn't cover everything. When they'd been scavenging for food and medicine, he'd tested random machines and such to see if any of them could still prove useful. What he found was that there was a distinct division between what still worked and what for some odd reason did not. From what he could tell, pretty much anything invented after the nineteen eighties was completely useless while technology from before that decade could still be made to work. If this remained true across all forms of technology and advancements, then learning to survive without that which they'd grown up taking for granted would be necessary.

 _I do NOT look forward to the complaining they'll all do,_ he thought with a frown without breaking his focus on his student. _I think I'll let Alexander be the one to tell them. They'll take it better from someone closer to their own age and I'll definitely feel better._

It was, after all, the duty of every student to repay his master whenever they could, such as handling the minor things that anyone could do.

 _ **A Lake Close to Seijuro Hiko's Home**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Hard to believe that six months have already gone by,_ he thought, pulling his head out of the lake. _Still, can't argue with the results of Hiko's training, even if the old man is certifiable._

Looking down at his reflection in the surface of the water, what he beheld was not the body of an average teenager who engaged in casual exercise. It was instead more akin to a college athlete who took competing in his chosen sport seriously and trained accordingly. Hiko, of course, didn't say a word of praise at his progress and the second it looked like he might be getting used to the strain of each exercise the old man raised the bar, making it barely doable. Every day he was worked to the bone, making it so that he slept long and well. When it got so bad that his body started protesting loudly enough, his teacher gave him a few days to recover before restarting the training workload. He often wished that the old man would add two or three more days to the recovery period but it never lasted longer than it took for the soreness to recede to mild discomfort.

Walking back to shore, he slipped his top back on before sliding his katana back beneath his belt and then began the walk back to Hiko's house. It might be evening and supper would be soon but that didn't mean that his training was over with just yet. They were crude but several exercise setups had been erected in the open area in front of the house that could still be used by light of a fire. Since his training began, he usually wound up training until a little past ten in the evening but he didn't know how accurate Hiko's clock was, given its age. He had no way to confirm the time himself since, oddly enough, his digital watch had stopped working with his transportation to Japan. Still, with no drastic change to his sleeping schedule and using how his body felt, he was confident that he was still more or less maintaining his usual sleeping schedule.

He couldn't say the same of the others, though.

They'd all lived in a city for the majority of their lives, so they weren't used to roughing it in a very rudimentary house with only the barest of essentials. Nothing electronic made after the eighties worked for some reason, so computers, CDs, Walkmans, cell phones and video game consoles had been reduced to paperweights. With every subsequent salvaging trip they took to Kyoto to find things that could aid in their survival, the others learned of more and more things that they'd taken for granted no longer worked. None of them were electricians or had the slightest experience with various devices, but even still they'd looked inside some of the things that didn't work to see if they could figure out what was wrong. In most devices there were signs of burned internal workings but for the most part visually there was nothing that looked out of place or damaged. Even when they popped in fresh batteries with the things that needed them, they didn't work. Hiko theorized that it was the very complexity of the objects made after nineteen eighty, as well as the materials used in their construction that made it so that they couldn't work.

He was still spouting that gibberish about the planet Earth being moved someplace else and that the new location operated on subtle differences from the laws of physics that they were used to. Not enough so that the average person would notice but, if a proper scientific study was conducted, it'd become all too clear.

Whatever'd happened in Sunnydale with Acathla and whatever took out Tokyo probably just set off some kind of arcane EMP that fried random electronics that just happened to have been created after nineteen eighty. This perfectly explained why search and rescue services hadn't arrived in Kyoto and, since human beings could be considered biological technology, it'd also explain why some people died while others got turned into animal people.

It all made perfect sense to his mind!

It also explained why emergency services were so late in investigating Kyoto if a ton of their equipment stopped working. They'd have to do some serious hunting and scavenging to find stuff that still worked and would do what they needed it to do. He personally gave them another month before they'd have cobbled together enough stuff to send an actual team or three to Kyoto to look around.

Not that he'd be there when they did arrive.

If the damage was as widespread throughout Japan as he thought, airports and docks would likely be locked down until they determined who was responsible and captured them. Even then there'd probably be quite a bit of scrutiny focused on who was coming and who was going in case a follow up terrorists showed up. He'd definitely be a bit suspicious since he didn't have a passport and there wouldn't be a record of how he'd come to be in Japan, so they'd think he snuck in. Sneaking in implied guilt and, considering the sheer level of national outrage that'd be sent his way, it was unlikely that they'd set the burden of proof very high. No one knew he was, much less the American government, so if they kept things secret then they could pretty much do whatever they wanted to him. Even if word did get out that the Japanese government had arrested an American teenage boy, he didn't see the U S of A putting up much of a fight for him.

That was another reason why he was serious about learning Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū.

Not only would it allow him to survive the dangerous wildlife but also, if it came down to it, he'd have a way of dealing with soldiers who were all too willing to dump blame in his lap. Sure, normally an idiot who tried to fight modern guns with a sword would get killed but some of the moves Hiko demonstrated when he'd asked changed everything. Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū allowed the one using the style to move so fast that scores of enemies could be cut down. Also, with how quick he'd be able to move, it'd be very difficult for them to get a bead on him unless he got sloppy and he was pretty sure that Hiko would beat that habit out of him quickly.

Seeing the turn up ahead, he mentally ticked off on his mental map the fact that he was almost to the house he currently called home. With a little bit of luck, Hitori and Minmei would be finished with supper by the time he arrived, allowing him to fill his stomach with delicious food. He wasn't relying on them because he refused to cook himself but rather because, given his unfamiliarity with Japanese ingredients, his first two attempts had been quickly labeled toxic waste. Since none of the others wanted to go without food or waste precious resources, he'd been told he was exempt from meal duty and instead was assigned chores that'd help in his training. That meant chopping wood for the fire, helping with any repairs that needed to be done to Hiko's house and carrying the heavier items salvaged from Kyoto.

Considering how scrumptious the meals cooked by Hitori and Minmei were, there was no way he was going to try and force himself back into the kitchen for another failure.

As the house came into view, he found himself oddly comforted by the sights that had become commonplace in the last weeks. He'd gotten to know each of the survivors of Kyoto quite well and, while some of Minmei's quirks rubbed him the wrong way, he didn't think he'd come to hate her the way he did some of Cordy's clique. Kirito was pretty much what you'd come to expect from a teenage guy and they'd become friends over their shared unfamiliarity with roughing it in the woods. True, he thought that Hiko was harder on him than on Kirito but he didn't take it personally since his teacher was like that with him no matter what he did. The funny thing was that, even though Seijuro was hard on him almost all day, it never felt like the times that Tony acted like an asshole towards him. Try as he might to compare the two and find differences, he found that many of the things his sperm donator did Hiko also employed but with the same results.

The only thing his fried brain could come up with was that, unlike Tony, the old man never did any of those things out of malice or drunken hostility. Hiko only pushed him because he genuinely thought that he could rise to the occasion, or at least that was the conclusion he'd arrived at. Tony, on the other hand, only piled on the work or made hurtful comments because the asshole needed to make other people feel worse than he did. Tony was a man who never held down a job for long, only got new ones out of charity and probably heard people regularly speaking of him out of contempt or derision. While he could understand up to a point why Tony would get angry, it was wrong to take it out on those he should hold most precious.

"How long 'til supper's ready, Minmei?" he asked once he got close enough that yelling was not needed.

"It's almost done, Xander… probably," Minmei replied from her position next to the cooking pot.

Probably? How ominous.

"I've never cooked something like this before!" Minmei exclaimed defensively even as she held up a cook book in her hand. "But I've been following the directions as best I can!"

He had to admit that without a stove to precisely calibrate the heat and pre-digital watches to monitor the time following recipes that took such things for granted would be difficult. For him it'd probably require quite a bit of trial and error to match the level of bubbling to a desired temperature but Minmei was managing pretty good if previous meals showed anything.

"Don't worry. I'm sure you'll do fine," he said with a reassuring grin on his face. "You haven't screwed up so far and I don't have any reason to think you will now."

Predictably Minmei didn't say anything but he could tell that she was a little less worried about the results of her current cooking combination.

Hitori at the moment was setting the table that they set up outside for group meals because, while Hiko's house could fit the five of them, it was by a very small margin and that was only if they put some of the furniture outside. The old man had grumbled about it the first few nights but, after a while, seemed to accept it and never spoke of the matter again. He thought for a moment it was because the stuff they put outside was valuable but, no matter how you looked at them, they were ordinary pieces. He could only suppose that they might hold some sort of sentimental value that made Seijuro oppose leaving them outside where they might get damaged by the elements.

"Need any help over there, Hitori?" he asked just in case she was feeling a little overwhelmed.

"No, Xander-san. Thanks for asking, though," she replied as politely as she ever did.

After getting over most of her trauma from the terrible happenings of Kyoto, she'd turned out to be one of the nicest and most polite young girls he'd ever met. So much so that he doubted that there'd ever be even a bit of darkness in her soul no matter how long she lived. In truth, he almost saw her as the ideal little sister model rather than the mixed bag of traits that most older brother's got, save one little quirk that kept the title from being perfect.

The few times that she'd accompanied him to Kyoto, she'd stopped in a few book stores and even disappeared once or twice before returning with a bag full of books. At first he hadn't thought much of it since it hurt no one and it was none of his business what sort of books she liked to read. However it was during the weekly cleaning of Hiko's home that he'd stumbled across her stash and found out unintentionally that she liked reading manga that was centered around guys romancing guys. It wasn't porn, nothing more than what you'd see in most prime time TV shows, but it had still caused him to immediately put them away before finding someplace else to be.

There were many things he loved about Japanese manga and anime, one guilty pleasure of his being harem stories with one guy and many pretty ladies, but he just couldn't find it within himself to understand the whole yaoi thing. Maybe it was a product of his mainstream American upbringing or maybe it was just a contradiction to how he'd always viewed the world, but two guys being all lovey-dovey with each other made no sense whatsoever. It made even less sense that someone like Hitori would actually be interested in such manga since every other girl he knew preferred man/woman romances.

 _So long as she doesn't fall into the same trap as Buffy with the whole 'Romeo and Juliet' scenario, I don't really mind,_ he thought before looking to see if he could spot Hiko.

The old man was nowhere to be found but that could be either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what mood the swordsman had been in when he'd left. If the man had left in a good mood then it implied a heavy night of training since Hiko seemed to take pleasure in making him go pale at the newest goal. If Seijuro had left in a bad mood, it meant something troublesome had popped up that only he could fix in a satisfactory manner. Both possibilities had him worried since weird new training or some kind of trouble did not bode well for anyone's immediate future.

Still, there was nothing he could do about either until he learned more, so he'd just keep his senses sharp while going about his normal routine for the evening.

He groaned a bit as he remembered that tonight was one of the nights he'd have to sleep inside the cave with the dragon egg in order to 'bond' with it properly.

 _I still think it's nuts that he thinks the dragonling will bond with me like a duck,_ he thought before heading for the closest chair to sit down. _But if I don't do it voluntarily, Hiko'll find a way to make it happen involuntarily._

 _ **The Woods Nearby**_

 _ **Seijuro Hiko's POV**_

"Looks like I'll have to up my idiot apprentice's training," he muttered as he flicked the last of the blood off of his blade before sliding it back into its sheath.

Not that he was entirely dissatisfied with Alexander's progress thus far but, after this incident, it was clear that battle would come to the lad quicker than he'd originally anticipated. At first the only threats that he'd thought existed for those under his protection were the enhanced animals that were already native to the area. They were easy enough to handle by playing on their instincts to his advantage or slaying those who would not be hindered by his precautionary measures.

This, however, was another matter altogether.

Looking down at the misshapen form he'd cut apart, he chastised himself for not considering that this might be one of the consequences of the relocation of Earth. He'd suspected within the first three days that that nature, both plants as well as animals, would be affected by the new rules. When he'd seen the automobile off to the side of the road, he'd immediately suspected what Alexander would find inside of it. He'd been somewhat surprised at discovering the changed Hitori, Kirito and Minmei but had adapted to the change in circumstances well enough.

He had not considered until now that there might exist those who'd wound up halfway between human and demihuman, as he'd come to call those humans with animal traits.

Yet the truth lay dead before him.

From what he could make out, the corpse had started out as a human male and whatever was responsible for the change had tried to mix the man with a dog. However, the random length of the limbs, the patches of fur rather than the uniform coat and the jaw that looked like it'd only just be capable of allowing the abomination to eat made it clear that the transformation had been far from perfect. Likely the chaotic nature of the man's new form had driven the human insane and, as a result, instinct rather than rational thought had governed its actions. He'd sensed its unstable ki as Minmei had begun preparing supper and left to deal with it since he didn't want his meal interrupted.

When he'd found the abomination, it'd been tearing into a larger than normal otter but did not seem intent on eating it at all. He'd attempted to communicate with the former human in order to determine just how much of its former humanity remained but all he'd gotten were animalistic growls, snarls and slobbering. When it'd chosen to attack him, its movements had been very direct and unimaginative, making even ordinary animals seem like tactical geniuses with how they dealt with their prey. That being said, it did possess speed as well as power that surpassed what anyone but he possessed. At their current level of combat capability, none of the children would've lasted long against the abomination.

He would like to think that the one he'd just slain was the only one that existed but, in matters such as these, where there was one there were almost certainly more. The human population was over six billion people, with the population of Japan itself having one hundred and twenty-seven million people living within its borders. Even if only one percent of them turned into abominations, that would mean that scattered across Japan there was one and a quarter million of them. With one potentially existing for every square mile of Japan it wasn't too bad but if they were truly ruled by their instincts, they could very well develop pack instincts. That could lead to groups of anywhere from thirty to a hundred and that would mean trouble for any surviving groups of humans turned demihumans. With such groups possessing a random assortment of skills and possessions, the odds of forming an armed united front capable of defeating such a pack were small.

Once Xander faced his first one and came to the same conclusions, he might very well choose to run off to help others just like Kenshin would. If either of them had any sense, they'd realize that running off with incomplete skills or abilities would only cause the situation to get worse.

That was why he had to increase the training load since he knew there'd be a limit to how long his more convincing arguments would be able to keep Alexander from running off to 'save Japan'. It was times like these that he really wished that he'd learned how to erect barriers from a monk or a feng shuei master since it'd make protecting his charges easier. Since that wasn't the case, he'd have to settle for doing everything he could to accelerate his student's training without destroying his body in the progress.

Casting his senses about to see if there were any more of the abominations, he was somewhat relieved to find no ki signals that matched what he'd just slain. A few animals both of the normal and abnormal variety but nothing that matched the abomination that lay dead at his feet.

 _Given that we haven't encountered them before now during our trips, it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that it was attracted by the smell of corpses in Kyoto,_ he thought as he began to walk back to where the others awaited him. _Once it found nothing it liked there, it likely began searching the immediate area for something more appetizing._

Depending on what sort of range the abomination's sense of smell had, more would likely come until the stink of decay from Kyoto died down.

He'd have to call off any more salvage trips to the city for the next while until Xander became competent back up.

It didn't take him long to arrive back at home and, judging by the appetizing smell in the air, Minmei's supper was ready to eat. While there was nothing wrong with the food he usually cooked for himself, it was nice to experience something a little different. There was a variation in quality but that was to be expected when the cooks didn't have the tools they were used to on hand. Still, it'd never gotten so bad that he even thought about handling all the meals himself and he could then use that time to train Alexander.

"Where'd you go, sensei?" Alexander asked, being the first to notice his return.

"An overly large animal was heading in our direction," he replied, being more or less truthful. "I decided to deal with it before it interrupted our meal."

"Another bear?" Alexander asked out of curiosity.

"Something like that," he replied as he took his usual chair.

No need to scare them with the truth until they had the skills to face it without fear.

For now he would let them have their time of peace, a new family and minds free of the hardships he had a feeling were on their way.

They'd have to grow up sooner or later but he was kind enough to make it later.

At least until he got handed a reason to make it sooner, that is.

 _ **The Dragon Egg Cave**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Roll it up. Roll it down._ He continued to perform the only exercise he could in the cave. _Never thought that doing something so simple could be so hard._

He held a metal rod in his hands but the rod had some rope tied to it and at the other end of the rope was a weight that could be made heavier or lighter depending on the situation. The objective was to roll the rope up around the rod and then roll it back off over and over again. The part that made it tough was the fact that Hiko had instructed him to do it slowly so as to get the best results out of the exercise. As for the goal of this exercise, it was to strengthen his wrists so that he'd be able to keep his katana steady and maintain a solid blocking position. He'd initially scoffed at the point of the exercise but, when Hiko had challenged him to do fifty katana swings and block strikes from him fifty more times, he got the message.

His wrists had been sore for the rest of the day and required an ice pack in order for the swelling to go down.

Feeling the burn begin to mount in his wrists, he did three more reps before dropping the improvised exercise tool and taking a seat on the floor next to his bottle of water. Taking a quick swig, while wiping the sweat off his face, he looked over at the egg that hadn't so much as moved since he'd first been given the responsibility of caring for it by the old man. It would've been a little entertaining if it'd glowed or if he heard little dragon noises coming from it but he hadn't gotten any of that. So, aside from switching out the smelly old stuff to keep the egg warm with new stuff and making sure the fires were burning at sunset to keep things warm throughout the night. It didn't mean that he had to spend every single night sleeping in the cave, just every other night, but it still wasn't something he enjoyed, even with the comfortable sleeping bag that'd been salvaged from a Kyoto store.

 _How long does it take for a dragon egg to hatch anyways?_ He turned his gaze away from the egg. _Six months? A year? For that matter how long has it been since this thing was laid in the first place?_

Without knowing when the dragon the egg belonged to popped the egg out in the first place, he had no way of knowing how long he had left to wait even if he did know how long it took for a dragon egg to hatch. Thinking about it for a moment, he had to wonder whether he wanted it to happen sooner or later. He had no doubt that it'd be scary as heck and a mess of trouble after it hatched, thus a part of him wanted to delay its hatching for as long as possible. On the other hand, the sooner it hatched the sooner he could sleep back at Hiko's now-repaired house and that would be nice. So, being torn between two possible scenarios, he decided to toss the entire line of thought over his shoulder, leaving it to chance to choose when the egg would pop.

Cr-rck…

 _What the-?_ He thought as he turned back to the egg.

Cr-ra-ack…

This time there was no missing the crack that formed in the surface of the egg and, assuming that it wasn't some sort of early hatching, it meant that the baby dragon was about to say 'hello' to the world. Not having the slightest clue about how to handle a newborn dragon, he ran to the entrance of the cave and did the only thing that came to mind.

"HIKO! HELP!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

He didn't know how sharp Hiko's ears were but he seriously hoped that they were sharp enough to hear him and that the old man could get to the cave in time to make himself useful.

Going back into the cave, he saw that two more separate cracks had popped into existence, joining the one he'd first seen. At the rate they were appearing the egg would lose the ability to hold itself together in another few minutes, so he was relatively okay with that since it should be more than enough time for Hiko to arrive and help out.

CR-R-RACK!

"ROAR!" came the first bellow of the dragon as its head burst out of the top of the egg into the open air.

It wasn't really all that intimidating a sound but his imagination had no trouble imagining what it'd sound like once the dragon was fully grown. He'd bet good money it'd be scary enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Inch by inch the head went further from the hole it'd made in the egg upon a decidedly lengthy neck but eventually two short clawed arms appeared, allowing it to pull even more of itself out of the egg. Eventually the structural integrity of the egg collapsed, letting out the entire baby dragon, covered in its birthing fluids, and exposing its true form.

 _So I'm dealing with a Shenron type dragon instead of a Bahamut style dragon,_ he thought absentmindedly, picturing the dragon from the anime first before thinking of the Final Fantasy dragon. _I wonder if it'll grant me any wishes._

It was a ridiculous notion considering the fact that it hadn't been spawned by seven amber orbs and wasn't big enough to be seen from a mile away, but that's where his imagination had taken him.

Like with most newborns it was wobbly on its feet, having trouble figuring out what did what and how to stand, so he had some time to take all of it in. It had a golden underbelly gong from right under its jaw almost to the very tip of its tail but, as for the rest of it, the color almost made him think the scales were rubies. The tiny claws poking out of each toe were carbon black, with the horns being the same color wrapped around the sides of its head to form a sharp-looking crown. It was a bit surprising to see that it had hair since, in his experience, most lizards and reptiles didn't have hair. This one did but, instead of being red, gold or black, the hair was the color of freshly polished ivory, looking to be only an inch or so in length at the moment. However it was when its head turned in his direction and the eyelids peeled back to reveal slitted amber colored eyes that matched those of every Hollywood dragon that he almost bolted.

Almost but, before he could put act to his thoughts, he realized that, like the bear, the dragon would likely pursue him as prey if he ran. At the same time though being confrontational with the creature might in fact inspire an aggressive response that he would very much like to avoid, seeing as how he was NOWHERE as fast as Hiko at the moment. So instead he tried to find and embrace his inner calm, believing that if he didn't give off any vibes one way or another it might confuse the dragon long enough for Hiko to arrive. When that happened he hoped that the swordsman had some useful bits of information for getting on a dragon's good side, as well as taming it enough to eliminate it as a future threat.

Over and over again he repeated every movie quote he'd ever heard about creating a peaceful mind and a serene soul, hoping that it'd have a calming effect. Looking at the dragon, he could see it starting to get used to its four legs but fortunately it didn't look like it'd be running any races anytime soon. As for what it was thinking… it didn't look to be getting aggressive or sizing him up for its very first meal, but then again it was a staple of sci-fi that it was a mistake to attach human thinking to inhuman things. In this case it'd be a mistake to try to match how the dragon was moving with how a human would move if aggressive. Slowly but surely it approached him, giving him the impression of a curious dog who'd never seen what it was looking at before and was curious about finding out more.

 _Show no fear, feel no fear, show no fear,_ he thought as he did his best not to fidget as the dragon's head invaded his personal space.

With surprising noise for simple sniffing the scaled creature inhaled his scent but, considering that it'd never been outside its egg before, he was pretty sure it didn't have anything to compare his stink to. Unless dragons had come kind of genetic memory where things like 'this is food' were stored and passed down to future generations, he should be safe.

So long as he made sure that the dragon was never in a situation where there was a risk of it getting human flesh into its mouth. If he didn't let it get a taste for the stuff, the odds of him getting put on the menu would be minimal.

When its sniffing got to his chest the animal used its front legs to grip the front of his pants so it could raise its head to be level with his own. He could hear the denim strain to keep from ripping under the creature's weight but, once the amber eyes were on the same level as his own, the sound of little bits of fabric ripping ceased. Doing his best to keep from freaking out at being so close to some sharp teeth, he just gazed into the eyes, trying to give the impression of total calmness. He managed to maintain the calmness right up until its tongue snaked out of its mouth to give him a good lick across the face, leaving a trail of drool behind it. While not as repulsed by such things as, say, Buffy or Willow, that didn't mean he liked it when demons, or in this case a dragon, slimed him.

Deciding that now was the time to install some rules between them, he grabbed one of its shoulders and the other pressed against its chest/neck before trying to push it off. However this was not something the dragon apparently wanted as it dug his claws even more into his jeans, bringing back the tearing sound and even pricking his skin. Wincing both at the pain as well as the mess that was being made of his jeans, he decided that since Hiko did have spares back at it house it was worth ruining his pants if it meant freeing himself from the dragon. Using even more of the strength he'd gained from training to push even harder but, sadly, this resulted in something that was both a good thing and a bad thing.

The good thing was that he managed to finally get the dragon off of him without getting some nasty cuts from the claws on its front legs.

The bad part? This shredded of his jeans and left him in just his tighty-whiteys below the waist and OF COURSE this just had to happen just as Hiko, Hitori, Minmei and Kirito dashed into the cave.

He looked down at his now bare legs.

He looked over at the dragon that had apparently come to the decision to finish turning his jeans into so much confetti.

He looked back at the others, all of whom had a 'what the hell' look on their faces, though the girls were looking away with a slight blush on their cheeks.

"Anyone ever tell you your timing stinks, sensei?" he asked rhetorically even as he thought that it'd have been nice if Hiko had arrived BEFORE the dragon had gotten close.

"Once or twice," Hiko replied, ignoring the fact that the question had been obviously rhetorical in nature.

Sighing, he just looked back to the dragon, which by now had finished with the jeans, looked back at him with an expression that he could not define one bit.

 _Something tells me that my life just got a little more complicated,_ he thought with a sigh as he began to walk towards the entrance to the cave, intent on finding replacement pants ASAP.

It was getting cold and drafty.

 _ **Outside Hiko's Hutt**_

 _ **A Few Months Later**_

 _ **Seijuro Hiko's POV**_

 _The bond has formed,_ he thought as he watched Xander go through his practice swings.

It had been a full year since he'd begun working with Xander to beat his body into something resembling passable shape and he was glad to see that it was a sight better than Kenshin's had been at the start of his training. Then again, his former idiot student had always possessed a slight build and had occasionally been mistaken for a woman until the stranger got a better look at him, so perhaps that wasn't saying much.

Whatever the physical state, he'd chosen to start official kenjutsu training two days ago, starting with the five most basic ways of attacking as well as the five fundamental ways of defending. He'd been able to tell the moment he'd seen the young man grip Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi that the American had never received a day of official instruction in swordsmanship in his entire life. That had meant going back to the absolute basics, ranging from how to properly hold a katana with one or two hands and a lecture on the nine points of the human body that all sword styles inevitably targeted. While he could've just pointed them out on the wooden training dummy and been done with it, he chose to go into a bit more detail. He explained the effects of striking each point, from a small cut to something a few inches deep, but that was under the premise that the opponent would be human. If it turned out to be an animal or something else, Alexander would have to learn which spots were best to strike at on his own.

As for the dragon that Alexander had moronically proven his lack of imagination by naming Ruby, it had thus far proven his original theory of imprinting on the first lifeform it saw as family, or at least as something that could be trusted. As a result Ruby never strayed far from the young man, often slept at his side and, whenever mealtime came around, would often try to coerce bits of food from his plate. In many ways it resembled your average domesticated pet but then there were the times that it proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it was something else entirely.

One such example was the fact that from time to time it would try to take to the air, emitting a mist of sorts from its body in the process, but while it could hover as well as travel short distances, it wouldn't be touching the clouds any time soon. Whenever it tried to ascend higher than four or so feet into the air, some sort of instability manifested, causing it to drop down to more stable altitudes of flight. It had yet to prove itself capable of breathing fire or some other destructive force but he expected that would come in time as it matured. Its claws, on the other hand, had already proven themselves capable of cutting through stone as well as steel, as proven when it'd been unsatisfied with its food portion and gone straight to the storehouse for more. It'd succeeded in clawing through the stone wall in a matter of seconds and, even when he'd brought a lock box from Kyoto to put the food in, the dragon still managed to bite through the metal.

Only by taking steps beyond the normal as well as every scent concealing trick he knew were they able to finally keep the food from being pilfered behind their backs.

 _I can only imagine the sort of trouble it will give Alexander once it's all grown up,_ he thought, remembering that, while it had been some time since it'd hatched, it'd still be a while before it reached adult size.

According to the book he had on dragons, their rate of growth depended on the breed but even the most prodigious growers among the various breeds still needed at least three years to reach the average size of an adult. With a few months out of the way already that meant, in roughly a year and a half, Ruby would be big enough to bite a human in half or even swallow one whole. Given the food requirements for a creature that size, just keeping the crimson dragon fed would take some doing.

Concealing such a large creature would also be something of a problem, especially if enough electrical eyes and ears were still functional enough to spread the word quickly. Throughout the ages dragons had been associated with power and there was no question in his mind that at least some of the survivors would be criminals or people who'd adopt criminal behavior in order to survive. If such people learned that a genuine dragon existed, they'd either do everything they could to acquire Ruby or they'd try to kill her in order to neutralize a potential threat. Until Xander became a true Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū master, Ruby fully came into her own both in style as well as deadliness and his idiot student gained a few respectable allies, it would be best to keep the dragon hidden.

"Watch your elbows, Xander!" he yelled at his student, whose swings were beginning to produce flaws. "Remember how I showed you!"

Almost immediately the swings went back to the way they were supposed to be but this slip could mean that his student was getting bored with the repetitive swings. It was often a problem with anyone wishing to learn kenjutsu and he'd been through a similar issue with Kenshin early on in his training. Back then he resolved it by taking the boy into Kyoto for a day or two of distraction before resuming his training. Unfortunately, with the city in the state it was in now, there wasn't much in the way of desirable distractions so that destination was out of the question.

 _Hmmmm… perhaps a trip to Nagoya would be better,_ he thought as he remembered passing through there a few years back. _Transformed humans, abominations and enhanced beasts aren't the only things to worry about in Japan now._

There was also the indigenous youkai population to be concerned about.

With the opening of the country to foreign powers and their scientific advances, obstacles that normally would've kept the human population in check became less and less of an issue. As a result of the increase in population over the decades that followed, more and more wilderness was eliminated to make way for housing and industry. Not many breeds of youkai could pass for human and there were some who treated modern technology the same way humans treated a serious spill of toxic waste. As a result, youkai who chose to mingle with the human population made sure to stay on the periphery of civilization so as not to risk exposure. As for those who despised technology, they would often attack any attempts to expand further into the wild, only for the incidents to be labeled as the work of 'exo-terrorists'.

In the aftermath of the Calamity, both kinds of youkai would reevaluate their current situations to see how it could hurt them or how it could benefit them. He was fairly certain that whatever had killed most of the humans in Kyoto would not have had such fatal consequences for the youkai population. There might be some physical alterations but, given the nature of youkai in general, their bodies would be more accepting of changes than a human's body. In all likelihood the ones who hated technology would probably attempt to retake lost territory while also destroying everything connected to humanity as a form of revenge.

Those who'd mingled with humanity would likely mourn the loss of those humans who they'd become close to but would likely get over it in time depending on the lifespan of their specific race.

In preparation for an encounter with one of the more hostile breeds of youkai, he planned on dropping in on the Amakawa family. He'd met up with Sawako and Gennosuke in the late eighties during one of their jobs to deal with a pack of troublesome youkai, helping them along the way. They'd had things mostly under control and it'd only been because one of the youkai had decided that he was with them that he'd gotten involved.

The fight had ended quite swiftly after that.

Somehow after that they'd gone to a nearby bar & restaurant to celebrate their victory as well as get to know each other. While he would never change his opinion about humanity and civilization, he had hit it off fairly well with them even with them being Demon Slayers. Contrary to what the twelve Japanese demon slayer families would have you believe, they were not the only people who saw it as their duty to defend Japan against supernatural threats. The Twelve, though, were the more vicious when it came to dealing with youkai when compared to other non-affiliated people or groups. The Twelve saw it as their purpose to completely eradicate youkai or, as they called them, 'ayakashi', regardless of the fact that some species of youkai were in no way a threat to humans. Luckily for him the Amakawa clan was the only member of The Twelve that took a more rational stance towards the youkai, going so far as sparing youkai when it was possible to do so without endangering innocent beings. For this mercy and compassion the other members of the Twelve often looked down on them and felt disgust at the habit but not enough to excommunicate them from the group itself. By the time their celebration came to an end, he was able to consider them friends who he occasionally sent to and received letters from over the years.

It'd been a while since he'd last gotten one of their letters but he was sure that even if they'd passed on from old age, their son would have taken up the same profession. A quick trip to their home in the country to acquire a supply of ofuda and other components needed to protect the forest where his home stood would be good. The spells and wards would likely need some flexibility in order to ensure that only those who meant to do harm would be kept out but he was sure that the Amakawas could help with that.

 _Now if I recall, a trip from Kyoto to Nagoya usually took about an hour and a half by car, but since we don't have a car, it'll probably take closer to a day and a half,_ he thought as he continued to watch Xander's form for mistakes in need of correction. _Some camping equipment would be needed unless we went right through the night without rest. We'll likely need to leave Kirito in charge of the others until we get back._

It shouldn't be much more than four or five days, depending on the status of their stock of components and the availability of free time.

He'd already spent a few nights clearing out the local predators and using Ruby's waste to put up a natural barrier around his property. With enough food to last them the five days and the instructions he'd give them not to leave the forest for any reason, they'd be safe enough from harm.

 _Maybe I'll be lucky enough that their grandson will be far along enough in his training for a little light sparring between the two of them,_ he thought with a grin at the possibilities. _Might just be enough to motivate Xander past the boredom._

 _ **A Highway in Japan**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

"What makes you think your friends are still alive?" he asked as they walked down the highway towards Nagoya. "I thought you believed that everyone was dead 'cause the world got stolen."

"I never said that everyone was dead," Hiko said without turning his head. "I merely said that when being brought into a new reality, a new dimension, it was only logical that the rules that governed things there would be different. Couple that with whatever issues that reality had to begin with in terms of war or disease and survivability would be questionable at best."

"Then how'd you survive? How'd they?" he asked, hoping to poke holes in the man's bullshit story.

"I survived because I was able to use my ki to protect myself during the transition…" Hiko replied as birds flew by overhead, "…and because I believe that those who are not completely human are somehow rendered safe from the death that killed so many in Kyoto."

"Not completely human?" he asked before coming to a stop with a spike of wariness.

"You've been living with me for over a year and you only think about that now?" Hiko asked, turning around as he came to a stop. "My great great grandfather was kitsune-youkai. Though the youkai blood has thinned over each successive generation, it is still enough to warrant defining me as less than human apparently."

"What about me? Or Hitori? Minmei? Kirito?" he asked, trying to find further flaw in his sensei's methods.

"You and the others are likely safe from death for the same reason. Each of them now have traits of animals and can no longer be classified as human," Hiko replied without any hesitation. "As for you, I imagine that before Janus dropped you in my lap he altered you as well to ensure that you would be able to make the most of my training as well as survive in a world no longer as you remember."

Him? No longer human?

"Don't think that just because you don't have horns or furry ears that I am wrong," Hiko said as he turned back. "I know what men are capable of, I've seen many and fought against many more, and you have exceeded what should've been possible for a man in one year. And you do not smell human."

"Are you saying I stink?" he asked humorously so as to make fun of the idea of him being anything but human.

"One of the things I inherited from my great great grandfather was a sense of smell that is much greater than any pure human. One of the benefits is being able to identify people by their scent as well as see through attempts by youkai to appear human," Hiko replied, not rising to the bait in the slightest. "Your scent… I guess you could say that Janus likely chose your inhuman side with a bit of humor. Then there is of the fact that a master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū can sense the ki of others well enough to determine if something is different about them be it illness or a difference of heritage."

"Whatever," he said as he resumed walking behind Hiko, shoving all that he'd heard aside.

He rejected what the guy implied about him and his whole story about a displaced Earth but the idea that something being different in the survivors genetically made a sort of sense. If what killed the people in Kyoto was some sort of biological weapon tailored to kill humans, then even a slight difference in DNA might very well be enough to keep him and everyone else from dying.

He wasn't quite sure how the whole 'getting animal parts tacked on' came into play but, if Hiko was at least being truthful about being part youkai, then it provided an answer for Hitori and the others. If each of them, somewhere in their family tree, had some youkai blood, then perhaps whatever wiped out Kyoto had somehow caused that ancient blood to assert itself.

As for him his best guess was that Janus put some kind of divine protection on him before dropping him on Hiko's doorstep. He'd heard Giles mention a few times how deities could put their blessing on a human and, so long the god that placed the blessing was strong enough, it could protect the human from harm. However, if the attack was from a stronger deity, directly or indirectly, the blessing could be shattered, allowing harm to befall the human that once was protected. It was a little hit or miss as to how science and sorcery would interact when they came into contact but, seeing as how he was still alive, he guessed that Janus' power was stronger than a manmade disease.

 _Here's hoping that Janus doesn't up and decide to yank that protection for laughs,_ he thought, passing by a car that'd gone partially off the road, its passengers visible to his eyes.

He shuddered at the idea of going through whatever these poor souls had been put through before dying. To be killed so swiftly that you could not even try to flee or go somewhere for help… he could only hope that they died too quickly to feel any pain.

As time passed and they got closer to Nagoya his mind was opened to how widespread the biological attack must have been. Not an hour went by that they didn't come across one or more vehicles with their dead passengers still inside and they were miles from Kyoto. His mind worked to try and conceive of how the tailor made disease worked as well as its maximum range once released. His inexperienced mind thought that it would only be logical that it would not spread beyond its target city, being designed to go inert before it could do so.

No one wanted a land, after all, that was too poisoned by an artificial disease to live in.

Then again terrorists were never the most rational of people and logic often didn't factor into their decisions.

Depending on how they came by the tailor-made disease, it could've had a few miscalculations mixed into its makeup, causing it to spread beyond its original target area. If the targets were major Japanese cities but the disease spread past the outer edges, then the death toll could be ridiculously high. He knew that they'd left Kyoto well behind them so, if the car occupants they saw had died from the weapon released from there, then the range of the disease was great indeed. It was terrible enough that Kyoto had been rendered devoid of life along with anything human in the surrounding area, but if more than one city suffered the same fate then…

Immediately he had to fight the nausea rising within him at the death toll his imagination was coming up with.

His original theory had been that the reason why there'd been no search and rescue operations in Kyoto for so long was due to some sort of EMP shorting out a lot of the necessary equipment. However, if more than one city had been hit and the payload of each weapon had spread well beyond the city confines, then the truth might actually be that search and rescue was overwhelmed. While he was pretty sure that someone in the Japanese government had thought up worse case scenario involving a nation-wide threat, it was unlikely that any prep work had actually been done. No one would likely wish to see such a crisis happen so the government likely focused their efforts on stopping things from getting that bad in the first place. Suddenly having probably four or five cities get it, as well as the surrounding area, had the entire country in chaos. Depending on where the important government officials were when everything went to hell, as well as the military personnel who'd be in charge of field operations, Japan could metaphorically be headless as well as armless at the moment.

With no leadership either in the government or the military, it would be left to the local authorities and the people to fend for themselves.

That was not of the good no matter how you looked at it.

He'd seen too many movies involving a country post cataclysm and it either led to other nations swooping in to claim devastated land for their own or criminals using the chaos to seize entire cities.

Takeovers from within and possible invasion from without could mean that getting back to America would be a more perilous mission than he'd originally thought.

Smugglers might've seized control of the docks, bandits the roads and the local Yakuza each individual town or city worth holding. Given the fact that him and Hiko had managed to pilfer supplies from Kyoto not long after the attack, it would be stupid to think that others wouldn't be doing the same with the locations closest to them. That didn't mean just civilian stores or homes but also police precincts or military warehouses. Depending on the rules governing what could and could not be kept at such locations in the cities, it could turn a small time gang into major players capable of doing real harm.

 _Information. I need a way of getting info if I'm gonna figure out a way out of Japan and to America,_ he thought, walking down the road more or less on autopilot.

Until he knew which places to avoid and which places were safe, getting airborne on a plane or passage on a boat would have to wait. He had no money and, depending on who had control of the transportation hubs, it might cost more than G-man could loan him to get out of Japan.

The road home had just gotten a helluva lot longer for him but to see his friends who waited at the end, he would stay strong no matter what.

 _ **Nagoya**_

 _ **Seijuro Hiko's POV**_

Walking along the path that led to Sawako and Gennosuke's home in the woods, he hoped that the bad feeling he was experiencing was just the result of seeing no new survivors of the Calamity.

Throughout the journey from his home to Nagoya they'd come across numerous vehicles occupied by the corpses of their owners. The foulest one had been a bus that had been partially filled with people, but neither he nor his student had lingered any longer than they had to on such a horrible sight. Even after having seen the mass grave that Kyoto had been turned into, neither of them like to see further evidence of innocent people dead before their time. He'd been tempted for a time to use the mounting death toll to poke a hole in his stupid student's fantasy that only Japan had been devastated but in the end he chose not to. To do so would be to risk creating a rift between the two of them and that could be ill afforded if he was to succeed in passing on the teachings of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū.

When he'd taken Kenshin as a student, it'd been the suffering of the people under the reign of the Tokugawa Bakufu that'd caused him to abandon his training before it'd been finished. This was because Kenshin's heart had been unable to numb itself to the troubles of the country and had acted to resolve those troubles using the skills he'd acquired. In Xander's case he sensed much the same way of thinking, that of one's heart, and if that were indeed true, then using the dead to prove his truth to be accurate would only anger the boy. Someone who was angry would resist the facts just to spite the person who angered them. It was imperative, though, that Xander accept the truth sooner rather than later for, once he was gone, the boy would be responsible for not just himself but for Hitori and the others.

Ignorance of the truth bred mistakes and mistakes in a chaotic world could lead to tragedy or death unless you were extremely skillful as well as lucky.

As he reached what he determined to be the mid-point of the trail, he looked about at the various tree branches, wondering where the bakeneko youkai Himari was. While not entirely the most dedicated of allies, the youkai did take her oath to the Amakawa clan seriously and, given the Calamity, he had expected the young lady to be on guard duty. She better than most would know how the various breeds of youkai and demon would react to the dramatic change in the national status quo. While the Amakawa clan took up a different stance on youkai in general, the youkai saw all members of The Twelve as enemies to be wiped out if the opportunity presented itself. As such maintaining a strict watch on the edges of the property was crucial to avoid being surrounded and wiped out by hostile youkai.

"What's wrong?" Xander asked, having noticed his wariness.

"Normally if there's trouble, a youkai by the name of Noihara Himari patrols the property for signs of intruders," he replied even as he continued to look for a white cat or a young woman in a kimono. "Even if she was on the other side of the property when we arrived she should've picked up our scents and come to determine our intentions."

"Maybe there's already been an attack and she's recovering?" Xander suggested, only sounding mildly concerned.

"Possible but I don't think so. As you may know youkai age differently than humans do and one that looks like a teenager could in fact be several centuries old. With age comes experience, skill and power," he said, shaking his head in the negative. "Himari-san is quite skilled in a variety of weapons and can get carried away if provoked. If a threat strong enough to harm her attacked, we'd see more signs of it in the landscape."

"A sneak attack? Doesn't matter how skilled you are then," Xander proposed after a few minutes of thought.

"Sneak attacks might be possible on humans with their dulled senses but youkai can perceive a great deal more with their senses. To sneak up on Himari-san, you would need to thoroughly mask your scent, create no sound when you moved and keep your hostile intent from reaching her," he explained so that Xander could understand the likelihood of a sneak attack. "Managing such a feat would only be possible for seasoned warriors."

"Then maybe we should hurry up just in case they need our help," Xander said, picking up the pace to the point where he was taking the lead.

"Oh? So you think that you've progressed enough in your training that you qualify as backup?" he asked condescendingly.

"Well maybe not backup but I'll have you know I have two years of decoy experience to my name and I'm still alive," Xander replied, conceding his inability to be anyone's backup at the moment.

"Surviving things that should've killed you ten times over isn't something to brag about, apprentice," he chastised as his eyes spotted the top of the house getting closer. "Luck only lasts so long and the fool that depends on it will die sooner than later."

"I know. That's why I want to learn Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū," Xander said, resolve both on his face as well as in his voice. "Not just to make it out of Japan but to help my friends when I get back home. Fighting on the Hellmouth I was more of a tag along rather than someone who could fight shoulder to shoulder with Buffy. If I can manage to fight even half as good as you at the end, I'll finally be able to do some real good."

"Even if you do manage to become half as good as me, don't think that'll mean you'll be like some comic book hero changing the world with every adventure," he said sagely, remembering the past quite well. "Never forget that you are but one person capable of being in only one place at a time. You were born, you are growing but you will die eventually. No matter how much you might wish it to be otherwise, any changes you make will not be up to you to maintain. Much like many other things, without maintenance decay is inevitable and perhaps irreparable."

"I know! I'm not trying to be the next Captain America or Superman!" Xander exclaimed with some irritation at the listing of his limitations. "I just want to be more than a donut fetcher! More than someone who has to be saved! I want to stop being a burden and really bring something to the table that I can be proud of."

"To improve oneself is a honorable goal, Alexander," he said in an effort to calm the discussion down a bit. "But it is important to set realistic goals for yourself. Too many people set their sights on the stars only to have their spirits crushed when they realize just how large the gap truly is. Trust me when I say that it takes a toll on the soul to have reality shatter your dreams over and over again."

Nothing was said after that and as they reached the house he found himself glad because what his eyes beheld caused his worry to rise sharply.

Graves.

There were two graves a short distance from the main house lined up side-by-side.

 _Not good,_ he thought as he looked to the house with its interior lights turned on. _The last time I checked there were four members of the Amakawa clan still among the living._

That would mean that the clan had been cut in half and, unless some serious baby making was done, the bloodline of Amakawa would end.

"Um… HELLO? IS ANYONE HERE?" Xander asked at the top of his lungs while slowly walking towards the house.

 _Baka!_ he thought angrily at his student's stupid act. _If there are any more threats in the area we've now lost the element of surprise! Even if there isn't after losing two of their number, any remaining members of the Amakawa clan will attack first and think later!_

Sensing a sudden manifestation of killing intent, he sprang forward, threw his idiot apprentice over his shoulder and then leapt into the air. This proved to be a good decision since moments later six dagger-shaped icicles impacted on the ground where Xander had been standing. Dropping his idiot apprentice to the ground, he looked to where he suspected the icicles had come from and found a rather befuddling sight.

Standing on the roof of the house, looking to be in her mid-teens, was what looked to be young woman with jade hair and red eyes, looking as fit as any member of the Oniwaban Group. However it was not those details that had his attention but rather the fact that she was clad only in an almost completely transparent nightgown that looked like it belonged to a six year old and pink panties. Due to the fact that it wasn't the right size the nightgown only just managed to cover her grapefruit-sized breasts. It was a safe bet to say that if she did so much as a single hop it'd be enough to give his apprentice quite the show.

 _A youkai… a mizuchi unless I'm very much mistaken,_ he thought as he used his sheathed sword to block further icicle attacks. _Odd since_ _Gennosuke's last letter made no mention of another youkai swearing fealty to the Amakawa clan._

"What's her problem?!" Xander asked with some anxiety from behind him.

"What do I look like, a mind reader?" he asked even as he tried to use his skills to discern the truth. "Whatever her motives it's clear that she does not want us here. Whether nor not she'll pursue us if we choose to leave is debatable."

"Leave? What makes either of you think you'll be leaving at all?" a female voice asked rhetorically and with hostility.

Partially turning his gaze towards the source he found a woman in her mid-twenties with brown hair clad in a crimson skirt and white shirt. However, given the way her arms were extended to snake-like lengths, each one having a short sword in hand, she was obviously a youkai and, thanks to his past experience, he knew her to be a himoenma. He'd had the misfortune to run into one who'd caught wind of his blood during one of the rare times when a foe managed to get past his guard. Hinoenma's were succubus youkai who gained nourishment from the blood and spirit of their prey, so he'd been seen as quite the meal. Now while he'd had no intention of letting her drain him dry, she had been sufficiently beautiful that he'd declared his willingness to give her some sustenance in exchange for her… natural skills.

Some would no doubt be offended by such an arrangement but it was actually quite logical. Hinoenma needed blood and spiritual energy like humans required food and drink. While some might gain it by malicious or even sadistic means, neither was something they could do without for very long. If he'd denied the youkai even a snack back then she would have gone in search of other prey and, depending on how long it took, she might not have been too gentle in how she chose to take it. If by sacrificing some of his blood and spiritual energy, he could prevent a savage attack of desperation it was only natural to do so.

As for the latter part the hinoenma he'd encountered, she had been rather beautiful and enjoying the company of such a lady was treat he'd have been a fool to turn down.

Somehow he didn't think such an enjoyable moonlit night would be possible with THIS particular hinoenma.


	4. Hardships of a New World

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are some who enjoy reading my stories. Therefore please no lawsuits or anything because I can promise that whatever you get from me won't cover even half your legal fees.

 _ **Outside the Former Home of Sawako and Gennosuke**_

 _ **Nagoya**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _This is definitely going to be a story I won't be telling the others when I get back_ , he thought, getting to his feet and placing his right hand close to the hilt of his katana. _They'd either never believe me or never let me live it down._

He'd been surprised when, out of nowhere, Hiko had grabbed him and leapt far away from where they'd been but, when he'd been able to look back, his surprise turned to thanks. Contrary to what some might think, icicles could kill people under the right circumstances, especially if they were sharpened as much as possible. He'd been a bit surprised and embarrassed when he set eyes on the person who'd tried to kill him because, outside of his private fantasies about the slumber parties the Cordettes might have had, he'd never seen someone with so little on. It might've been due to this that he'd spoken without thinking to Hiko but, now that they were being approached with hostility from both sides, it was clear where both their focus belonged.

"I believe there has been some misunderstanding here, ladies," Hiko said, his voice calm and without any provocative emotion. "Neither I or my idiot apprentice mean the Amakawa clan or its allies any harm. If I could speak with Sawako-dono or Gennosuke-dono, or even Himari-san, I believe this can all be cleared up."

"Well then I guess it's too bad for you then, isn't it?" Miss Fantastic said nastily, a malicious smile on her face. "Both Sawako-dono and Gennosuke-dono are dead. As for the cat girl, she's not receiving any guests tonight."

"So… Gen-kun and Sawa-chan have passed on," Hiko said, his voice tinged with the sadness of loss for a moment. "Then what of their son Daisuke, or their grandson? Surely one member of the Amakawa clan yet lives who can verify that I am a friend."

"You do not understand, do you, nano?" the two steps from nudist girl asked from the rooftop. "You are not welcome here, nano. Neither can we allow you to leave here, nano. There is but one thing to be done, nano."

The ladies intended to kill both him and Hiko.

He personally thought that murder was a little extreme in this situation but then he didn't know the particulars of their situation. To them it probably looked completely rational and, since neither of them were giving off any psycho killer bloodlust vibes, he could only presume that they had good reasons for eliminating him and Hiko. That being said, though, he couldn't really say he was okay with them killing him so, justified reasons or not, he was going to fight for his right to live.

With that in mind he made his choice and drew his katana Kusanagi, bringing it into what he hoped was a good defensive position.

"I don't know why you want us dead you two but I won't be that easy to kill," he declared, trying to put as much confidence and strength into his words as he could.

"Nice try, boy, but I've heard better lies coming from Sasa!" Miss Fantastic said maliciously. "Still, I'm curious to see just how good you are with that katana so… LETS PLAY!"

Before he could do much more than tense, the armed arms stretched across the distance between him and the demon woman coiling about in such a way that made it hard for him to guess where to put his blade. Deciding to go with the closer of the two, he angled his katana to the right, successfully deflecting the blade in the demon's left hand before he quickly moved it to stop the other one. This one was less of a parry and more of an actual block where their respective strength caused the blades to scrape hard against one another. He was a little surprised that he was managing to hold his own since, in past experience, every demon seemed to have some sort of strength advantage over ordinary humans. The fact that he was managing to hold his blade in place meant that the brunette must've been the runt of her family, but he was in no way complaining.

Getting an opponent that he could actually stand a chance at surviving could only be called a good thing.

That being said, it didn't take a genius to figure out that he was never going to be able to finish the fight if he stayed where he was. Swatting the swords away, he sprinted through the opening provided and he did his best to cross the distance before the elongated arms sent the blades back his way. He almost got close enough to justify a swing but, when his danger sense pinged, he aborted his charge, diving off to the side before raising his defense once more. Seeing the two blades cutting through the air towards him guided by the snake-like arms, he tried to tell which one would hit first in order to prioritize it… but he couldn't! He had no way of knowing which one would reach him first thanks to the seemingly random and roundabout routes they were taking to reach him.

When you have no clue, pull a Buffy: use brute force and hope for the best! He firmed up his grip on his katana's hilt, raised it above his head and then brought it down with his practiced to death vertical slash.

What he'd been hoping for was that the brunette she-demon would try to bring the blades parallel just before hitting him and then he could strike both with his overhead slash. It'd either buy him another chance to get in close and finish the fight or keep him alive long enough to come up with a better plan.

That didn't happen.

Instead, from the moment he began his downward swing, the air CHANGED and, with the passing of steel, a crescent column of air was sent barreling towards the blades as well as the arms that held them. Unfortunately for the brunette, though, this was no gentle breeze but rather air that crashed and smashed whatever it came into contact with. Under the force behind it the arms along with the weapons that held them were sent flying in the opposite direction, with it being clear that the she-demon didn't have the power to free them just yet.

 _Now! I'm never going to get a better chance than this!_ He sprinted for his opponent as fast as he possibly could.

Even if he couldn't kill her in one shot, he could at least wound her badly enough that she'd withdraw for her own survival.

"Stay away from Ageha-chin!" bellowed another female voice before something big, heavy and durable slammed into the ground next to him.

Veering off once more, he barely had time to recognize a wooden pillar the size of a telephone booth sticking out of the ground before an anomalous shadow had him changing direction once more. One after another they came with little warning, forcing his reflexes to the max in order to keep from getting squashed beneath the masses of wood. By the time the barrage came to an end he was fifty yards or so away from the brunette Miss Fantastic demon lady, who had since freed and retracted her arms back to normal human size.

Keeping an eye on the brunette, he looked about for whoever had thrown all the wooden pillars at him, figuring it had to be some butch bodybuilder type woman. After all, even taking into account the fact that supernatural strength didn't necessarily require that demons be super bulked up, to toss wooden columns like that was not normal. To the right, to the left and then up to the treetops he looked but, when he finally spotted someone, he hadn't seen before but the person he found did NOT match what he'd been imagining. Instead of the female version of Terminator Arnold, what he got was someone whose appearance could confuse with being a guy or a girl. The only reason he'd labeled her a girl was because of her voice and now with visual evidence, the wearing of a dress and hair that was done in a distinctly feminine style.

 _Great! Three against two!_ he thought as he tried to figure out how he could even things up more.

Looking to his teacher, he hoped that Hiko would break out some of his super moves to even things up quicker but those hopes were dashed when he saw the old man being lazy. He was only defending and even then not putting any more effort into protecting himself than he needed to. If he had to compare it to anything, it'd be like seeing Buffy keeping a vamp at bay with only one arm while reading her favorite teen magazine with the other.

"Um, Hiko?" he said, trying to get his teacher's attention. "I think you can take the kid gloves off now. I think these ladies are serious about killing us."

"Are they?" Hiko asked rhetorically even as he casually blocked two more icicle barrages. "The Mizuchi controls water and I suspect that includes what resides within plants. If she wanted to, I'm willing to bet she could hit us from all sides. Yet she hasn't. The same could be said for the other two ladies. They might be able to fool your eyes but not mine. These are scare tactics."

"Are you so sure, jiji?" Miss Fantastic asked definitely, sounding bloodthirsty. "Are you willing to bet both of your lives on it?"

"As a matter of fact I am," Seijuro replied with a smirk on his face. "Besides, my idiot student here could use some light sparring to get use to the real world applications for his training."

"And if they really do kill me?" he asked, pointing out a very real possibility in his mind.

"Then you never stood a chance at completing the training in the first place, so it'll save me from wasting my time any further," Hiko replied, sounding like losing an apprentice would agree with him.

Asshole!

 _ **Seijuro Hiko's POV**_

 _Like I would let these three kill him_ , he thought as he continued to read the flow of ki from the Mizuchi to counter her attacks. _If there's one thing I hate more than wasting more time, it's finding out that the time I've already spent was a waste of time._

Besides, Janus had sent both the boy and the dragon to him for a reason and, while the old god might like to play with his prey a little, he never let his true goal out of his sight. If Alexander was needed to fight the evil that had displaced the Earth, then he could not permit the boy to perish before then.

That being said, he was confident in his analysis of the energy belonging to each individual youkai that they were holding back at least half their true strength. Once he'd ascertained that it'd been easy to deduce that they were merely attempt to give the appearance of being scary and strong so that when he along with his student were allowed to escape, they'd spread the word. The more people these youkai managed to convince that this area was a death sentence, the more secure it would be from those looking to claim it as their territory. Of course appearing strong, appearing scary, might actually have the opposite effect since those who desired to prove their own strength often sought out such places.

If the youkai did not possess strength to at least partially match the image they were projecting, their plan would backfire on them, leading to their deaths.

 _Better to see if they can back up their boasts and be reassured that they can protect themselves than to assume they can only to return to find three more graves_ , he thought, deciding that first phase of their appraisal had come to an end. _Time to see if they can defend as well as attack._

Keeping his sword sheathed, he decided to test the defenses of the Mizuchi first since she was the apparent leader of the group and therefore would be struck first by the leader of any opposition.

First he executed a barrage of swings that would be a challenge for your average member of the sword bearing police from the early days of the Meiji era. It was difficult for one of his skill level to lower his performance level to such a degree but it was a good starting point before raising the difficulty level.

 _Movements as fluid as I expected given her chosen element_ , he thought as the young lady evaded his blows even as she tried to make her own. _Against an opponent of this level it couldn't even be called a match. Time to work a little harder to defeat her._

Mentally increasing his effort and skill, it reached a level consistent with Shinamori Aoshi, one time leader of Edo Castle's Oniwaban Group, whom he considered to be the second greatest opponent his stupid apprentice Himura Kenshin had ever faced.

Just as a master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū could use their eye of insight to deduce the particulars of the techniques used by their opponents, with a bit of practice they could perform them as well. As a result it wasn't too hard to execute Ryūsui no Ugoki, allowing him to flow around the Mizuchi like water, alternating the speed at which he moved. The intent of this technique was to confuse one's opponent, making accurately anticipating attacks difficult since reading body language made up half of a swordsman's perception in a fight.

Waiting until he made his third pass before lashing out, he watched as the water youkai's manipulation ability barely managed to bring forth enough quantity to stay his blow. It spoke well of her skills to be able to perceive when and where he would attack in the midst of a technique meant to instill confusion. However his attack had been fairly direct even mixed in with his random changes in speed, so with a barely perceivable change in how he moved he began to mix in feints with his attacks. THIS proved to be too much for the Mizuchi as two out of the three strikes he executed succeeded in hitting flesh rather than water.

 _So she is skilled enough to handle conventional forces but not an officer,_ he thought as he watched the green haired Mizuchi flee the roof for a safer location. _If not one of them can handle an officer on their own then their only chance will be to eliminate the basic infantry swiftly so that they can focus on the real threat._

To see if they could do so he would have to change from a test of skill to one of pure speed in order to mimic an assault by multiple opponents at once.

Leaping from the rooftop himself he advanced on the Mizuchi as soon as solid ground touched his lead foot, putting some of his own style's speed into his movements. Once he was close enough he began to randomize his attack vectors, using bursts of speed to move from one to another in order to see how swiftly she could both sense where he was and react to it.

Wisely the young woman ceased trying to defeat him with precision moves and instead adopted area of effect movements with her ability to manipulate water. While this tactic was proving to be effective in providing defense, he had yet to see her attack in the same manner. Was it because she had yet to devise an effective means of doing so or was it that she simply couldn't attack at all? If the truth was the former then he would give her another minute before coming to any conclusions but, if it was the latter, then he would move onto the other youkai women.

Not letting up in the least in his pace, he continued to come at the Mizuchi from all sides but, when two minutes passed without a counterattack with merit, he knew he had his answer. If a small gang of hostile enemies attacked this location and there was only one commanding officer among them, then there was a chance that the Mizuchi could dispatch the minions swiftly enough. However if a larger force more consistent with a platoon or a division attacked, the green haired girl would be overwhelmed.

Thus, with a small increase in his speed, he dealt a blow rendering his first opponent unconscious, causing her to drop to the ground.

Once he was sure he had not overdone it he turned to the hinoenma, who looked to be somewhat surprised that the Mizuchi had lost to him. However she needed to learn that even if your ally fell in battle you could not allow that to produce cracks in your defense or inspire hesitation. In battle death could strike with as little as a single second of hesitation or distraction. Only if you outclassed the enemy completely could you afford to allow such slips and even then there was the chance for a lucky shot by one's opponent.

With a burst of speed he was soon just outside of striking distance of the hinoenma and, as soon as she perceived his presence, she lashed out reflexively with her blades. However since the counterattack was instinctive rather than consciously done it was direct and therefore easily evaded. Slowing down just a bit so that she could collect herself, he unleashed his multi-vector assault to see how she would use her ability to stretch her limbs to deal with the challenge.

 _Hmmmm… her limbs do afford her an impressive range of motion_ , he thought as her arms managed to twist and stretch to block blows even in her blind spots. _However it seems as though she doesn't have the experience to move her elongated limbs rapidly in shared space._

Indeed, even as she moved to counter his attacks, there was a moment's hesitation as she made sure not to cut herself or get her arms tangled up together. When added to the conscious choice to retract a limb before stretching it out again and she wasted valuable time that could and likely would be exploited by an enemy. True, it looked as though it would take an impractical amount of foes to truly exploit these flaws but it could still be done.

With the ability to perceive the path her arms took, he thrust the point of his katana sheath forward into the gap that had presented itself, striking her in the chest. With the power he'd put behind the blow it was unsurprising to see he fly backwards and slam into a tree trunk hard enough to knock all the air from her lungs. Seeing her falling to the ground, he felt it was safe to say that it would take her a minute or three to recover enough to be a threat.

More than enough time to deal with the log dropper.

Turning to face the purple haired girl, he decided that after two straight victories he would give his third potential opponent a chance to end things peacefully.

"I've had my fill of exercise for the night," he said, keeping his voice calm. "My apprentice and I came here hoping to conduct some business with the Amakawa clan but obviously we came at a bad time. We'll be leaving now and I do not recommend trying to stop us."

It was regrettable that he would not be able to acquire the means of protecting his home from hostile youkai but, if both of the clan members he knew were dead and the third grave was for their son, there was nothing that could be done about it. He knew from the last letter he received that their son had married and had a son but that had only been seventeen years ago. Assuming that the boy began his training at age six, which was traditional, then he would only have eleven years of knowledge and even less than that of real life experience.

That's not even taking into account the possibility that my friends or their son might have perished before they could complete the child's training, he thought as he tucked his sheathed katana beneath his belt. It's looking as though I will have to teach the children at least some of the basic methods of defending themselves from the more common youkai breeds.

While he would not be able to teach them swordsmanship the same perceptive ability that allowed him to use the technique of Shinamori Aoshi had allowed him to witness several anti-youkai techniques. While some required that the user possess the aptitude for sorcery, others could be done by anyone willing to learn the specifics. He would likely need to meditate in order to bring the memories back to the surface of his mind but that would not take long.

"Man, am I glad that's over with," Alexander said as he sheathed the Kusanagi. "You know you could've KOed them sooner."

"Then you wouldn't have learned anything," he said as though the reason why he'd waited had been obvious to anyone with a brain.

"And what was I supposed to learn? How to fight desperately for my life?" Alexander asked with a bit of snark.

"No. You were supposed to learn how to apply the sword swings and positions I've taught you to real life situations," he replied with a headshake of disappointment. "You were also supposed to realize just how far you are from being able to win a real sword fight. Obviously we'll have to work on your observational skills when we get back."

"I'd say… y-yours could do with some… improvement… old man!" came an angry voice belonging to the hinoenma.

Turning to where he'd seen her fall, he watched as she finished raising herself into a shaky standing position, weapons still in her hands through willpower alone.

"I think not. Do yourself a favor and sit down before I am forced to knock you down. Again," he said, finding her stubbornness mildly commendable but mostly foolish.

Being able to properly measure the gap between yourself and your foe was common sense for any warrior discipline and those that failed to do so often paid with their lives.

"Sounds like fun!" the hinoenma said with murderous intent that had not been there before.

Pride.

That was the only possibility that made sense, even if it was foolish to let pride lead you to your death. While he could simply render her unconscious, youkai were known to hold grudges for a very long time. Couple that with their superior senses and it was not outside the realm of possibility that the hinoenma could track both him as well as Xander all the way to Kyoto. Depending on how ruthless the blade-wielding youkai turned out to be, it was possible that harm could befall Hitori and the others.

Somehow he had to cut through the pride that was causing the female youkai to think she even stood a chance against him and for that he feared he would need to be a bit more heavy handed than before. Unsheathing his katana for the first time since the fight began, he took up a basic ready stance aimed directly at the hinoenma.

The woman apparently took that as a 'ready when you are' move because a moment later her arms shot out at was likely their top speed of extension. He wasn't worried and, with an almost casual motion, he executed what he felt would be least likely to harm while also providing the best example of why further fighting would be pointless.

"Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū: Doryūsen!" he declared before executing a vertical downward slash that struck the ground in front of him.

Even at just under the level of strength, both physical as well as in terms of ki, usually used to perform the technique, he watched as a perceivable fissure shot across the gap at twice the speed of the arms. Once the fissure was close enough he sent a spike of ki along the path created, causing the ground to explode upwards, sending both dirt as well as stone at the hinoenma. Due to the multiple impacts, the woman's own attempt at attacking him fell apart as the focus needed fell to pieces along with the instinct to retract her arms in order to protect herself. By the time the last of the earth debris lost momentum, the youkai woman was once more on the ground but, amazingly enough, still appeared to be conscious. With waning strength that was only just proving capable of aiding in sitting up, the hinoenma's eyes soon met his and he could see that her determination to fight remained.

This is proving to be bothersome, he thought as he wondered just how far he would need to go to end this potential threat.

"Stop!" cried the purple haired youkai as she ran to place herself between him and the hinoenma. "You can go! Just stop hurting Aggie-chan!"

"Sasa… get out of the way!" the hinoenma called 'Aggie' growled with stubbornness. "This isn't over!"

"Yes, it is!" Sasa declared before waving her hand at Aggie, causing visible distortion in the air.

Distortion before her suddenly, the hinoenma was slammed to the ground by an invisible force that left an impression in the ground below the shape of a rough circle. THIS proved to be enough to finally cause the youkai to lose consciousness and end the fight. In response he sheathed his katana, allowing the red and white cloak to fall into place, concealing him from the neck to the ground showing he would not continue hostilities.

He was about to turn away and lead Xander back down the path they'd used to approach the house when he sensed movement from the building. Worried that another youkai might try to pick a fight, he turned to face the house but stopped as he recognized the kimonoed woman: Noihara Himari. However the woman standing in front of him did not match the one he remembered from his last visit. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been a cocky and playful yet also possessed a warrior's spirit that made him think that she could fulfill her obligations to the Amakawa clan.

The Himari he saw now, she looked like something was slowly draining the life from her and, unless something changed, she would someday welcome death no matter how it happened.

"Hiko-dono? Why are you here?" Himari-san asked with a voice that matched her fading health.

"I came here in search of aid but it seems I was too late," he replied as a few possible histories came up for consideration. "What has happened?"

The flicker of pain, grief, sorrow and helplessness that manifested in her eyes told him that what he would hear would not make this night any more pleasant.

Nevertheless he would not leave someone Sawako and Gennosuke felt responsible for to waste away from sorrow.

 _ **Xander's POV**_

"Sawako and Gennosuke perished of old age but you could also say they died from sadness," Himari said with a voice devoid of connection. "Their son, Shisui, had chosen to turn his back from the path of demon slaying, taking his son and wife with him. They only had time to place upon him a protective charm that would conceal his bloodline from being detected by anyone or anything.

"With no one to pass on their clan's teachings to they chose to live their remaining years as they'd lived: defending the innocent whether they be human or youkai. Unfortunately time and old age took their toll, leading to their final mission," the cat youkai said as they continued down the hallway to a room that looked to be intended to keep someone in. "With their deaths, only the possibility of their grandson becoming a demon slayer remained. However, in order to ensure that his existence was not given away, I kept my distance. Only when the protective charm dissolved did I seek him out, knowing that others would sense his power and some would seek to do him harm.

"Over the past year I defended him from many threats while watching as he proved that he had inherited his grandparents' beliefs when it came to youkai. I saw him grow and then he finally seemed to come into his own using his clan's power, Light Ferry, at will to defeat two powerful youkai. It was a false alarm, though," Himari said as they reached the sealed door. "After the battle he could not use it however he wished. Had fate been kinder he would've been given time to master this power and become a proud demon slayer."

With that the woman began undoing the locks and other implements meant to keep the door closed.

"Then… then hell came to this world. A foul jyaki swept over the land without warning overwhelming the senses and infiltrating the body. I-I do not remember clearly what happened after that," Himari said as she undid the last lock. "I wish I had never awoken to see the new world. Shizuku, Ageha and Sasa found themselves stronger than they had been before. The Mizuchi actually got a body upgrade, heh.

"And what of the Amakawa heir?" Hiko asked as the door was slid aside to reveal the interior.

"He is here," Himari replied as she entered the room before allowing them to do the same.

Walking into the room he expected to see a kid his own age perhaps laying injured in a bed but what he saw shocked him so deeply that words became impossible for him to form in his mind or speak. On the futon in the center of the room was something that perhaps at some point might have been human but it sure as hell wasn't any longer. The only way he could describe it was if the teenager in front of him had gotten infected with the biological weapon that had already killed so many but possessed a degree of immunity to it. This, however, was not a good thing by a long shot because, from what he could tell, while the man-made weapon had warped roughly half of the guy's body while at the same time poisoning it. New joints had been slapped into the altered limbs, primitive spikes at random places, human bones looking like they'd been warped as easily as putty and lastly muscles alternated between hard or goop.

With all that it was almost impossible to believe that the Amakawa heir was still alive… but he was if the breathing motions of his chest were anything to go by.

"It wasn't so bad in the beginning. Skin discoloration in places, some pain when moving around, but nothing to worry about. His friend Rinko and his so-called fiancé, Jingūji Kuesu, were also affected to differing degrees but using the supplies here we began treating them as best we could," Himari explained as she walked over to what appeared to be the spot she usually sat at. "It was only after the first four months that matters took a turn for the worse. Without warning all three of them were assaulted by an explosion of pain that, while strong enough to make it impossible for them to stand, was not strong enough to grant them the mercy of unconsciousness."

 _My God…_ he thought in horror of what that day must've been like.

"It took three days before the pain seemed to lessen to the point where they no longer screamed endlessly and could aid in the efforts to heal them. We even attempted to reach out to outside sources to learn more about what had happened but our cell phones couldn't find a signal. Even the landlines were useless for getting through to anyone," Himari said even as the young man she obviously cared for suffered in front of her. "Rinko was the first to perish. For all their power, for all that was contained in this house, their talents were more focused on killing youkai than healing themselves. The records contained here have written on them ways to counter the toxins, poisons, curses and spells of various youkai. We tried everything that looked like it might prove even the least bit effective but all of them failed."

His mind, unbidden, imagined what that would've been like had it happened to the Scoobies. It was a sad truth that, while both Willow and Giles were big brains, the latter didn't receive half the backing he felt the Council should provide THE Wathcer to THE Slayer. On one of the off days he'd helped G-Man organize their stock of supplies, from their books to their weapons to their spell ingredients, he'd found much to his surprise that it didn't really amount to very much. Indeed, it'd only been a few steps above what he would've called an emergency bag or something you'd hide away in case your main HQ was at risk of being blown to bits. When he'd asked his stuffy Brit of a surrogate father about it the man had conceded that he too was not entirely pleased with what he had to work with. However the reason he was given by the leading members of the Council was that a Watcher and his Slayer needed to operate covertly at their assigned location. That meant only supplies that could be concealed at their places of residence or the place chosen to be their headquarters could be sent to them. If an attempt was made to provide them with every weapon, every tool, every ingredient and every book they MIGHT need, then it would require five or more warehouses to hold it all.

Not the most effective way to remain low profile in demon central.

"Her body… her body melted before our eyes," Himari said as she reached for a cloth in a bowl of water. "We buried what was left outside before redoubling our efforts to save Yuto and Keusu. However all we were able to learn was that the magic in their bodies was slowing the progress of the sickness and that its rate of spreading would only increase the less magic they had to pit against it."

That made sense.

"Unfortunately for Keusu, much of her arcane energy comes from the external sources rather than from within her own body. It was one of the reasons why she'd sought out more Western sources of magic in order to improve her clan's standing among the other Twelve demon slaying clans," Himari said as she placed the cold wet cloth on Yuto's forehead. "It was due to this fact that she was the next to fall."

"Poor luck indeed," Hiko said, closing his eyes likely to say a silent prayer.

"Why's that?" he asked, not being as knowledgeable in magic matters.

"Mages that gain strength from outside sources need to expend a portion of their own magic in order to establish a connection with the book or artifact. The more power they wish to draw out of the source, the more of their own energy they need to use," Hiko explained, his eyes never leaving the last surviving member of the Amakawa clan. "In short Keusu could only tap into her own magic to fight for her life since trying to get additional arcane energy from anything else would've only undermined her defense."

"Keusu deduced this fairly early on herself. I might not have liked her since she was Yuto's fiancé but she gave it her all right to the very end," Himari said, confirming Hiko's appraisal.

So it was Keusu who was in the second grave outside.

"Judging from the look of him, Amakawa Yuko does not have much time left," Hiko said looking at the misshapen and sickly teenager on the futon. "Three months, maybe four, by the feel of his ki."

This naturally caused Himari to whirl at his kenjutsu teacher, anger and an almost desperate determination to her eyes.

"Tact, sensei. I know you know what it means and why people use it," he said to reprimand his teacher.

"Helping a person to avoid the truth does more harm than good in the long run," Hiko said, not sounding remorseful in the least. "Remember your own tale of Buffy and the vampire Angelus? Instead of supporting their relationship your friend Willow should have sided with you in discouraging it. It would've prevented the breaking of the soul curse and all the deaths that followed. It might even have prevented the dark ki from sweeping over the planet."

"Yeah, but this and that are two completely different situations," he pointed out even if he did agree with the whole Angel mess.

"Not really. The longer Himari refuses to accept the truth, the more pain she will suffer through in the next few months and at the end. The sooner she comes to terms with the truth and accepts his inevitable fate, the easier it will be to move on afterwards," Hiko said, undeterred in his position. "The past is full of examples of benevolent youkai turning dark because they could not get past the feelings of loss they felt after a human friend perished. It is in many ways the reason why many elders, both human and youkai, try their best to discourage relationships of any kind between the two sides. Youkai live for centuries while humans are lucky to see the end of even one."

"I know but… even if they don't last very long, that doesn't make them any less precious," he said, running out of fact based arguments to curb his sensei's statements. "I might've hated how close Buffy and Deadboy were but that doesn't mean I didn't see how much they cared about one another. If I'd been in Buffy's position, I would've told people to butt out and mind their own business too."

"I do not mean to belittle what Himari and Yuuto feel towards each other. That two people from races who more often than not embrace violence when they meet instead becoming so close… it gives me hope that one day peace can exist between youkai and humans," Hiko said with a wisp of tenderness that seemed out of character for the old man. "I only mean to spare her from the suffering she would subject herself to by clinging to hope that does not exist."

At these words he found he couldn't quite be so mad at the old man and, glancing at Himari, he could tell that she could understand where Hiko was coming from. Still, looking at Himari, he found it hard to decide what would be the better choice to make: force a clean break or let her ease out of it in her own time.

Both had their perils.

Both had their costs.

Looking at Himari, though, and how much she was already suffering, imagining how it'd be for her to go through three or more months more of it, he could not bring himself to let it continue even out of kindness.

"Himari… what you and Yuuto obviously have is the kind of love every teenager dreams of being able to find. It's the real deal not the lusty feelings most people think is love," he said as gently yet as honestly as possible. "But the question you have to ask yourself now is, do you spare Yuuto further suffering by ending his life now or do you force him to endure another three months of suffering? I know it's a hard question to answer, ridiculously hard even, but it needs to be answered before the love you two have decays into endless misery."

Turning from the tragic scene, he walked out of the room, intent on leaving the building and waiting for Hiko by the road. A part of him wanted to spare her the pain of ending the life of her loved one by doing it himself, but at the same time a part of him felt that no one but Himari had the right to release Yuuto's soul. In the end it turned out to be too big a question for him to resolve so he'd left, deciding that if anyone was going to get stuck with that job, it'd be the old man.

He, at least, was strong enough to keep homicidal grief stricken cat lady youkai from tearing him to shreds.

 _ **Hiko's POV**_

"It's done?" Alexander asked once he heard the sounds of approach.

"It is," he replied, unable to sound anything but grim after performing the task that he had minutes ago. "However I fear it came at a cost I had not anticipated."

Looking down at the white cat in his arms, he recalled all that had occurred.

After his cowardly apprentice had left the dilemma in his lap, he had chosen to simply wait a short while to see if Himari had come to a conclusion before taking the choice out of her hands. While poorly put, his stupid apprentice had laid the broad strokes of the situation for Himari. Assuming that Amakawa Yuuto was even coherent, mentally speaking, then he had no doubt that the boy was suffering greatly as what was natural warred with that which was not. To have lasted even as long as he had spoke much of how richly he'd inherited the power of the Amakawa clan but he was not mistaken in that it would not last much longer. Had the boy been fully trained by his old friends in its use and had experience fighting off forces that sought to attack his body, he would have fared better.

To subject anyone to such agony for even one more week, never mind three months, was unacceptable to him.

Fortunately Himari reluctantly came to the same conclusion and had said her farewells to the one she loved before looking at him, clearly asking him to do what she could not.

With enough swiftness and skill that there wouldn't be even a zero point zero zero one percent chance of the lad feeling any additional pain, he severed the soul's connection to the body. Watching as the life left the boy's tortured body, he had expected the youkai girl to be overcome with her pain either going feral and attack him or start crying like one of those tragic princesses of legend. However instead of following either route, a strange look came over Himari's face, then, like a candle, her human form melted away until all that was left was a decent sized white cat standing on all fours. He had expected that the cat would still share the same intelligence he'd seen in Himari in past visits but instead the youkai behaved like a normal pet.

He'd made four attempts to illicit an intelligent, sentient, response from the cat but each time all he got for his efforts was normal feline behavior.

"What happened?" Alexander asked even as Himari in her cat form nestled even deeper into his arms with a meow.

"I suspect that the trauma of Amakawa Yuuto's death cause Himari's sentient mind to retreat inward, causing her to transform into a cat both in mind as well as in body," he replied, gently petting the feline in question.

"Damn. We tried to make things better and wound up making them go right down the tubes," Alexander said, looking at Himari with pity and remorse.

"Oh, don't over dramatize the situation," he reprimanded his student. "Just because it wasn't some fairy tale happy ending doesn't mean we did the wrong thing. Given enough time to overcome the trauma in a supportive environment, I am sure her true self will return from her subconscious."

"I just hope that Ruby doesn't wind up getting jealous and deciding Himari's a snack," Alexander said with a bit of worry. "We are taking her back with us, right? I mean, I know she's called this place home for a long while but I'm thinking the bad memories are a lot fresher than the good ones right now. Some time away might do her some good at least until she's strong enough to come back here and face her metaphorical demons."

"Such a big word and you're still in high school," he said with some mocking before coming to a decision.

Walking up to his idiot apprentice he gently placed the feline Himari into the teenager's arms, forcing the action when the fool didn't catch on quickly enough.

"Consider her recovery another of your chores once we get home," he said before walking past the gaping teenager to go down the path that led to the highway beyond. "Given the bond you have with Ruby, it's only logical that you be the one to keep the dragon from feasting on feline anytime soon."

"You're asking me to get between a dragon and its meal?!" Alexander asked with a little incredulity. "Wouldn't that be a risk to the bond between me and Ruby?"

"If all it took to threaten such a bond was you spending more time with someone else then clearly you haven't been putting as much effort as I thought you were," he replied without looking back. "I'll have to cut the number of breaks you have in half and assign you to spend more time with Ruby in order to make the bond as strong as Mount Fuji."

Honestly he didn't think that Ruby would treat Himari as food when they got back.

While not displaying any of the human level intellect commonly attributed to dragons, he had noticed a distinct deference to Xander when it came to making certain decisions. Ruby was capable of making independent decisions even with Xander around but it was clear she saw the young man as a guide. As such so long as his idiot student didn't forget to feed her or make clear that Himari was not food, then there should be no problem.

"What about the other youkai ladies?" Alexander asked, following behind. "They probably care about Himari and Yuuto, too. Shouldn't we stick around and tell them what happened?"

"Given that I just mercifully killed someone they obviously cared deeply about, I doubt that they'll be overly rational," he replied, thinking about what'd likely happen in the next few hours. "I did, however, leave them a note explaining what happened and clues as to how to find us should they wish to discuss the matter further. Hopefully by the time they decipher all of them they'll be less inclined to do anything foolish."

"Foolish as in 'come screaming at you looking for revenge'?" Alexander asked, sounding like he didn't want to be anywhere near an event like that.

"Precisely," he replied without too much concern. "Not that it would amount to much. A mind consumed by emotion is much easier to predict that an orderly one capable of devising strategy and tactics."

"On the other hand, people with mad ons generally don't care what happens to them as long as they get their pound of flesh," Alexander pointed out, still sounding concerned. "People not caring if they live or die don't act like normal people do and that makes'em unpredictable."

Thinking on the matter, he had to nod somewhat since he'd seen a few people who'd strayed from what he'd anticipated they'd do while under the influence of vengeance.

"Perhaps. Nevertheless, I'm confident I can deal with them if they can't be reasoned with," he said, already thinking up ways to neutralize both the Mizuchi and the hinoenma.

"Of course you can. I'm pretty sure that unless Satan himself shows up challenging you to a fight there's no one Japan who could give you trouble," Alexander said, no doubt rolling his eyes. "I'm a little more worried about them coming after me. I mean, sure, I didn't die in the first couple of minutes but like you said they were just using scare tactics then. When they come after us this time I'm thinking the kid gloves are going to be off and the 'you are going to BEG for death' gloves are going to be put on."

"You worry too much, apprentice," he chided, letting a confident grin manifest. "I would never let anything happen to my favorite wood cutter."

"Gee, thanks!" Alexander said with a bit of snark. "It's so good to know that my woodcutting skills are what's going to keep me from being turned into Swiss cheese!"

While he didn't approve of the disrespect he was receiving, at least thinking up these snipes distracted his apprentice from his fear of what the youkai ladies might do to him.

Then again, if what the book said about dragons is true, then the boy might actually thank me by the end of the year, he thought with an amused grin as he remembered the words written on the page.

He looked forward to seeing another year go by.

 _ **The Home of Seijuro Hiko**_

 _ **Weeks Later**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

"Again!" Hiko ordered from his chair off to the side.

With a sigh barely held inside he returned to the starting point before bringing the Kusanagi into a proper ready position, once more going through the kata as his sensei had demonstrated almost two hours ago. While he hadn't known the official name beforehand, he knew that a kata was a detailed choreographed patterns of movements made up of all the swings and blocks he'd learned so far. According to the old man, the purpose was to get him used to using the swings and blocks together rather than just one at a time as well as using them in different combinations. The more he practiced the moves, either individually or as part of a kata, the less hesitation there'd be when he got into a real fight where his life was on the line. They'd been at if for a little over a month so far and he had to admit that the swings and blocks were getting smoother and more natural than they had before.

When he went through the katas, he could almost see his invisible opponent striking or blocking with every movement and that, according to Hiko, was a good thing.

Of course then the grumpy old man threw in a curveball by suddenly calling out a different swing or block for him to do and, more often then not, the alteration derailed everything. The first time it'd happened he'd asked 'what the hell was that for' and the old man had stated that it was dangerous to get stuck expecting a specific series of attacks or blocks. If he was going to be fighting robots with all the imagination of a pet rock, then sure, going through the same blocks and attacks would be fine, but against someone with intelligence an unexpected move was only logical. Ever since then, at least five times a day, though at random, Seijuro would call out a random technique or position and he'd have to get into it perfectly or be stuck doing the kata for another hour.

The old fart had even made it so that he would have to train through lunch and dinner until he got it right! All that good food that either Hitori or Minmei made tormenting his sense of smell and him unable to eat it until the tyrant teacher gave him permission!

Still, the one good thing that he could be happy about was that none of the youkai women from the Amakawa home had popped up yet. Honestly, he'd expected to be ambushed on the way home that night or sometime early the next day, but nothing had happened. He'd kept an eye on Hiko for some of the trip home to see if he could pick up on any subtle sign that his sensei had detected something he could not but nothing. So either his ability to read his teacher sucked or the dangerous women really hadn't chosen to come after them.

Once they'd gotten home Hiko had explained the basics of the situation to Kirito, Hitori and Minmei, including Himari's delicate mental state. The others had been a little dubious about the idea of the white cat being anything other than a white cat but just the same they'd done their best not to upset the feline. After the first few days the girls had actually started showering the cat youkai with love and affection, making it clear that a cat's charms could be ignored by no one for very long. Even Hiko petted Himari the few times the youkai had hopped into his lap and curled up into a ball. He, of course, wasn't excluded from the love and attention routine because for some reason Himari seemed to think his chest made for a very good bed at night. Now of course there'd been a few times where he'd rolled over in his sleep but Himari had always been quick to wake him up…with her CLAWS…whenever he came close to rolling on top of her.

That had triggered a few laughs from the others even if it was painful for him.

As for Ruby, the dragon had been curious enough when they'd first returned but after a session of mutual sniffing and looking into each other's eyes, the two reached a sort of understanding. That didn't mean there wasn't the occasional flare up, especially if he failed to balance out the attention he was giving Himari with the affection he showed Ruby, but he felt he had the hang of it now.

The fish thrown the dragon's way when he went down to the lake to catch dinner probably helped.

The two of them occasionally joined him whenever he went off on his morning runs, with Himari running alongside him even as Ruby snaked her way through the air between the trees. A few times he'd challenged himself to be the one that wore the two of them out first by going further or running faster then them but that didn't happen often. Mostly because, while he'd certainly come a long way from the shape he'd been in when he'd arrived, a flying dragon and a cat youkai still had the edge on him.

One day he had the hope that he'd be able to go faster than either of them, leaving them to struggle to keep up.

 _It'll be a bit hard if Ruby grows any faster_ he thought as he continued through the kata.

When the crimson dragon had been born he hadn't had a clue as to just how fast she would grow or how big she would get but since the time of her hatching, his 'partner' had doubled in size. Thankfully, though, her daily food requirement had not also doubled or else half his time was going to be spent fishing or hunting. Still, she'd progressed with her flying ability and could now soar above the treetops at any speed she liked, though he didn't think she'd ever come close to matching the speed of a fighter jet. Hopefully such acceleration would not be necessary or, if it did become necessary, that Ruby would be of such a size that her skin would be the equivalent of tank armor.

 _If I could just figure out how I did that air blast move with the Kusanagi, I could provide some backup_ , he thought as he finished the final swing of the kata.

Maybe not much backup but at least some.

"Better but not perfect," Hiko said from his chair. "Too bad for you that in a fight, victory or defeat can occur with only the slightest of differences. To perform the techniques at a level less than perfectly is to give your opponent an opening to exploit."

Typical.

Seijuro couldn't even give a compliment without adding something to cancel it out.

"I think he did awesome," Hitori said from where she and the others were watching the training. "Like a real live samurai!"

While it hadn't happened all at once, as the weeks had gotten by and the survivors of Kyoto had formed bonds with their new home, each of them at one time or another had taken to watching his training sessions with Hiko. Kirito remained mostly silent during them, only asking the odd question while Minmei acted like the expert of cool, giving him tips on how to be more awesome. As for Hitori, she was his biggest fan, cheering him on and telling him how he could meet whatever goal Hiko set. She'd started out quiet the first few weeks but, seeing a little Willow in how timid she behaved, he'd done what he could to help her through the rough hand life had dealt her. Sometimes it was by giving her an extra helping of sweets, other times it was making jokes at his own expense and sometimes just by being there when she needed to vent. As a result of his efforts he felt that she had almost completely moved past the horrors she'd witnessed in Kyoto as well as the deaths of those she cared for.

She still cried from time to time when something reminded her of those that were no longer alive but her moments of sorrow were no longer as intense as they'd been in the beginning.

He knew that he would never replace her family and friends but, if he could at the very least, he could do what he could to make her future something to look forward to.

"Please! At best he might be considered promising enough to be accepted for formal training by one of their instructors," Hiko said, dismissing Hitori's compliment with closed eyes as well as a raised nose. "Still, I'm an excellent instructor, so I'm sure I can make something passable out of him… eventually."

He couldn't help but roll his eyes, wondering if he'd ever manage to get through a single lesson with the old man without receiving a single put down or bit of condescension.

Maybe once he became an official master of Hiko's sword style, the old man might actually give him a heartfelt congratulations, but until then it would be nothing but dismissiveness and ridicule.


End file.
